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LIVES 



SACKED POETS 



CONTAINING 

A BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL VIEW OF ENGLISH SACRED 

POETRY DURING THE REIGNS OF ELIZABETH, JAMES, 

AND CHARLES THE FIRST. 




>iR(&m 



\ 



LIVES 



OF 



SACRED POETS; 



BY 



ROBERT ARIS WILLMOTT, ESQ., 

W 

OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 



PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF 



THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION, 

APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING 

CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 






LONDON: 
JOHN W. PARKER, WEST STRAND. 



MDCCCXXXIV. 



% 






T ** 




CONTENTS. 



Introduction 

Sternhold and Hopkins 

Spenser 

Southwell 

Barnes 

Constable 

Davison 

Sir Walter Raleigh 



Page 
1 

3 
5 

8 
15 
18 
20 
24 



Giles Fletcher 
Sylvester 
Drummond of Hawthornden 

George Wither 
Herrick 
Heywood . 

Francis Quarles . 



George Herbert . 
Habington 
Vaughan 

Richard Crashaw 
More 
Norris . 
Beaumont 
Flatman 

Supplement 






27 

57 
59 

61 
192 
196 

197 

230 

288 
291 

295 
326 
334 
335 
338 

341 



PREFACE. 



When the Biography of Sacred Poets was first sug- 
gested to me, my memory reverted with delight to some 
of the least known of our elder Bards, who adorned the 
reigns of James and Charles the First, — I recollected 
that while every other species of our poetry had been 
illustrated by many able and industrious scholars, the 
fountains of Holy Song were seldom visited. Warton, 
in his excellent, though imperfect, history, touches very 
briefly on the subject 5 and the subsequent publications 
of Ellis, Southey, and Campbell, embrace too extensive 
a period to afford more than a passing glance at the 
writers of religious verse. The most valuable contribu- 
tion to this department of our literature, with which I 
happen to be acquainted, is a little volume of Sacred 
Specimens, by the Rev. J. Mitford, containing several 
rare and interesting poems, but unaccompanied by any 
notices of the writers. This omission is to be regretted, 
since the Editor's taste and learning seem to have 
peculiarly fitted him for the task. 

My own position was felt to be one of considerable 
difficulty. An unexplored region lay before me, abound- 
ing in treasure sufficient to realize the most enthusiastic 
expectations, and compensate for the most persevering 
toil. But it was necessary to bear in mind, that a 
history of English Sacred Poetry was not meditated, 
and that a rapid view of some of its principal culti- 



Vlll PREFACE. 

vators, in addition to the more extended memoirs, 
was all that could be offered. This object appeared 
likely to be attained by the interspersion of occasional 
biographical and critical sketches, together with speci- 
mens. In the collection of these, some patience was 
required; the pearls were to be found before they could 
be strung 5 the abundance of materials, however, con- 
stituted the chief impediment. In the introduction, 
the amplitude of the theme became particularly ap- 
parent. Names kept thronging into my remembrance, 
which I had not the space to record, and which yet 
advanced important claims to attention. 

Among these may be specified Nicholas Breton, 
whose poetry interests us in his fate, but the mystery 
of whose life cannot be removed. Sir E. Brydges 
inclines to the belief that that he may have been a 
collateral branch of the family who enjoyed the manor 
of Norton, in Northamptonshire. He was certainly 
known to Ben Jonson, whose encomiastic verses on 
the " Melancholike Humours," seem to intimate that 
the poet's sufferings were not feigned. His "Extreme 
Passion" must have been the genuine outpouring of 
unmitigated wretchedness : — 

Where all day long in helpless cares, 

All hopeless of relief, 
I wish for night, I might not see 

The objects of my grief. 

And when night comes, woes keep my wits 

In such a waking vein, 
That I could wish, though to my grief, 

That it were day again. 



PREFACE. IX 

My sun is turnd into a shade, 

Or else mine eyes are blind, 
That Sorrow's cloud makes all seem dark 

That comes into my mind ; 

My youth to age ; or else because 

My comforts are so cold, 
My sorrow makes me in conceit 

To be decrepit, old, — 

My hopes to fears ; or else because 

My fortunes are forlorn, 
My fancy makes me make myself 

Unto myself a scorn. 

In the selection of Wither, I was influenced, not 
more by the hope of rescuing a writer of true genius 
from unmerited oblivion, than by the desire of pre- 
senting in his person an example of the efficacy of a 
well-grounded religious confidence upon our thoughts 
and actions, even when, as in Wither, it has to con- 
tend with unsettled opinions and an invincible ob- 
stinacy. Without attempting to palliate the fickleness 
of his political conduct, his resignation under trial 
may be regarded with respect. Charles Lamb has 
remarked that his spiritual defences were a perpetual 
source of inward sunshine 3 no imprisonment could 
depress his hopes, no opposition could arrest his feet in 
any fancied path of duty. In all his afflictions, he drank 
of the fountain within his breast, — a fountain nourished 
by the waters of peace. That he often erred was the 
misfortune of his nature 5 that he was frequently right, 
and always wished to be so, was caused by his religion. 

A revival of Wither' s poetry may not be unproduc- 
tive of benefit in a higher sense than literary instruction. 



X PREFACE. 

In every thing he wrote can be traced the work- 
ings of an amiable and virtuous spirit. His satirical 
effusions are usually recommended by their freedom 
from personalities. Whoever expects, it has been well 
said, to be gratified with the peculiarities which pleased 
him in the satires of Dry den and Pope, will be dis- 
appointed. By Wither, vice and luxury are attacked 
in general, not in the abstract -, as they prevail over 
the masses of society, not in individuals. No unhappy 
subject is tortured by heartless experiments in moral 
anatomy, — a liar, a drunkard, a scoffer, is "stript 
and whipt*." 

In his more serious poems, we find a cheerfulness 
and serenity, denoting a mind at peace with itself, 
and which gave to his prison-lays a sweetness irre- 
sistibly touching. His Muse does not demand our 
admiration by the splendour of her charms, but rather 
wins our love by the simplicity, the modesty, and the 
grace of her demeanour. We feel in her presence, as 
with a beloved friend, whose eyes always strike 
A bliss upon the day. 

In the charming words of Wither, 

Her true beauty leaves behind 

Apprehensions in the mind 

Of more sweetness than all art, 

Or inventions can impart : 

Thoughts too deep to be express'd, 

And too strong to be suppress'd. • 

Withers existence did not glide away in idleness or 
meditation. He was a soldier, a magistrate, an un- 

* Lamb. 



PREFACE. XI 

wearied politician $ at one time courted by the Royalists, 
at another by the Republicans, he was an active agent 
in those momentous changes which agitated the nation 
in the reign of Charles the First. It is singular that 
no attempt should have been hitherto made to combine 
the incidents of so varied a life. Several years ago, a 
selection from his Juvenilia, with a prefatory memoir, 
was announced by Mr. Gutch, of Bristol, but whether 
the publication was completed I have been unable to 
ascertain. The following account is the result of a 
careful examination of the poet's compositions, as well 
as of many of his contemporaries. No available source 
of information has been left uninvestigated, and much 
light has been thrown upon the events of his life by 
the researches of Sir E. Brydges and Mr. Park, whose 
Catalogue Raisonnee of the works of Wither, I have fre- 
quently consulted with advantage. 

I have also to acknowledge the kind assistance of 
the Rev. Alexander Dyce, and J. P. Collier, Esq., to 
the former of whom I am indebted for the loan of 
the Fides Anglicana, and the Translation of Nemesius; 
and to the latter, for the poems written by Wither 
during his confinement in Newgate, as well as for some 
extracts concerning him, from the Registers of the 
Privy Council, which are printed in the Supplement. 

The memoir of Quarles is, I am aware, brief and 
imperfect 3 but it probably contains all that can now 
be related of him, and certainly more than has been 
told before. The reaction of public feeling is less 
strikingly shown in Wither than in Quarles. Many a 
Settle has carried away the reward belonging to a 



Xll PREFACE. 

Dryden, and Quarles has been neglected for inferior 
rhymers, who had not sufficient originality to fall into 
similar errors. Balzac excused his admiration of Ter- 
tullian by confessing the style of that Father to be 
obscure, yet at the same time declaring that, like the 
richest ebony, it was bright through the excess of 
darkness. I will not adapt this conceit to Quarles, 
but there never was an instance where more genius was 
destroyed, or a richer fancy misapplied. He has paid 
a heavy penalty for his folly. Defects which were 
unperceived, or unregarded during his life-time, grew 
into gigantic distortions beneath the microscopic criticism 
of a more refined age. He was elevated on the ridicule 
of Pope to the derision of the meanest loiterer about 
Parnassus. But prejudices, whose only foundation is 
on the shifting sands of popular opinion, must sooner 
or later be swept away $ and for some years it has 
not been a disgrace to admire a few passages in the 
works of Quarles. His admirable Prayers and Medita- 
tions have been reprinted under the superintendence 
of an anonymous Editor, in whose intelligent labours 
we recognise the pen of Dr. Dibdin. 

Quarles was not one of the butterflies of literature, 
whose delicate wings, to use the metaphor of Southey, 
must not be too rudely touched. He was a man of 
strongly-knit and self-relying energies, able to stand up 
erect and fearless against the hostility of his foes. In 
all real genius there dwells the power of reproduction 5 
it is cut down only to spring up again with renewed 
strength. Thus the reputation of Quarles, after being 
crushed for a season beneath the weight of an oppres- 



PREFACE. Xlll 

sive criticism, has begun gradually to lift itself from 
its abasement. 

His personal character possesses a charm in which 
Wither' s is deficient — that of consistency. He lived 
and died a disciple of the Church of England, and an 
unflinching defender of his Sovereign. 

The life of Herbert by Izaac Walton, may seem 
to have precluded the necessity of any future biography 
of that poet 5 but this objection is easily obviated. 
The Lives of Walton, although interesting in their 
matter, and affectionate in their tone, are often tedious 
and unconnected 3 trifling events are detailed with 
wearying minuteness, while others of greater importance 
are often condensed into a few words. They read as 
if they had been composed in the summer evenings, 
by the river-side, when the honest angler's attention 
was divided between his rod and his memoir. This 
is not said with any intention of depreciating the 
merit of Walton, by one who has passed many a 
pleasant hour with him beneath the " shady mulberry 
tree." Much that Walton left undone, Dr. Zouch 
supplied, in his edition of the Lives. He was, how- 
ever, restricted by the text of the author, and some 
of the notes bear a very remote reference to the 
subject. I am, however, happy to record my obliga- 
tions to the information they convey. 

I have collected a few pleasing facts relating to 
Herbert from Aubrey, of whose Lives I have availed 
myself whenever an opportunity occurred. The value 
of Aubrey's anecdotes has been sometimes underrated. 
Anthony Wood, in a moment of spleen, spoke of him 



XIV PREFACE. 

as " little better than crazed/' and stigmatized his 
lapses of memory and readiness of belief by an epithet 
which has been invidiously preserved. But Aubrey 
was not more credulous than Wood, and far less in- 
tolerant. He lived, moreover, on terms of familiar inti- 
macy with many of the eminent men of whom he wrote, 
and his portraits are marked by an individuality, dis- 
crimination, and life, which stamp their authenticity. 

I have also endeavoured to place Herbert's poetical 
pretensions in a clearer light, and the specimens intro- 
duced into his Life will, I hope, in some measure vin- 
dicate his reputation from the aspersions which have 
been cast upon it. His opinion of the style most fitted 
for religious verse may be given in the words of one 
of his own poems. 

Yet slight not these poor words ; 
If truly said, they may take part 

Among the best in art. 
The fineness which a Hymn or Psalm affords, 
Is when the soul unto the line accords. 

Of his private virtues, that history will be the 

warmest eulogy which narrates his actions with the 

greatest truth. The simplicity of his manners, and 

the unaffected sincerity of his piety, cannot be too 

frequently brought before our eyes. The world is apt 

to overlook excellence so unpretending in her 

busy search 

Of objects more illustrious in her view. 

And he will not have toiled in vain who shall succeed 

in impressing on the youthful reader how infinitely 

precious, beyond all price, are the noiseless hours of a 

good man's life 5 and how infinitely to be preferred 



PREFACE. XV 

before all honours, are the humble flowers which 
blossom upon the good man's grave. 

Richard Crashaw was the most conspicuous ornament 
of the school of which Herbert was the unconscious 
founder. In the preparation of his memoir — I ought, 
perhaps, to say the fragment of a memoir, — I have 
been assisted by the MS. collections of Cole, of whose 
labours other traces will be found in the succeeding 
pages. These manuscripts, amounting to sixty volumes, 
w-ere bequeathed to the British Museum, with a direc- 
tion that they should remain unopened for twenty 
years after the death of the donor. The importance 
of this elaborate work, which occupied the author 
nearly half a century, can only be understood by those 
who have occasion to consult it. It remains to be seen 
whether this appeal in behalf of the neglected beauty 
of Crashaw' s poetry will be received with favour. 

We live in times of transition, when old feelings are 
passing away 3 ancient institutions crumbling into dust. 
The age of romance has vanished, the age of utility has 
arisen in its place. Few amongst us have now the 
privilege of contemplating the face of Poetry in the still 
air of uninterrupted studies*. On every side we are 
saluted with the Io ! of some new triumph of science 
and utility. Far be it from me to affirm that the 
change is not a beneficial one, or to object that the 
philosopher should occupy the poet's seat in our 
commonwealth. But it may be pardoned in one who 

• The reader will remember the eloquent passage in Milton, from 
whence this thought is taken. 



XVI PREFACE. 

has drunk, albeit though a little draught, of the "milk 
of a better time," if he surveys this revolution with sen- 
sations of sorrow, and would gladly recall the days, gone 
by for ever, when poets were the objects of admiration 
and reverence, and the presence of the Sacred Muse was 
revealed in the common paths of human life, by the 
tranquillity and joy which were diffused around her. 

The present volume conducts the reader to the 
threshold of the period which witnessed the produc- 
tion of Paradise Lost. Although a few of the poets of 
whom mention is made, were born subsequently to 
Milton, their works preceded the publication of his 
great poem, and the diligence of his numerous editors 
has shown how frequently he borrowed from their pages. 

With what success the proposed outline has been 
filled up, the reader will determine. In the ardour of 
composition, some inadvertencies were unnoticed, which 
a less excited eye will immediately detect. These will 
be regarded with the greatest leniency by those who 
are the least likely to commit them. And if any more 
important mistakes should be observed, the author can 
only join in the petition of the industrious Strype, in 
the preface to the Life of Bishop Aylmer, that they 
may be forgiven in one " who looks upon himself as a 
frail and fallible man, and is apt enough to have mean 
conceits of his own performances, and is very ready to 
be set right, and thankful to be instructed." 

Trin. Coll. Camb. 
February \7 , 1834. 



LIVES OF SACKED POETS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The pleasant study of English Poetry begins with the 
"ornate wryting" of Chaucer 3 and Sir Philip Sidney 
might well marvel that he could see so clearly in 
that " grey and misty time." The introduction of the 
Heroic measure forms an epoch in our poetical 
history*. But it was in Chaucer's green old age, as 
Mr. T. Campbell has observed,, that he put forth the 
full and ripe power of his genius in the Canterbury 
Tales. The feelings, the thoughts, and the manners 
of the fourteenth century, live in his verse. Who, 
after reading the Tales, does not sleep with the poet 
in " South werk, at the Tabard," and "be erly for to 
rise" with the thirty pilgrims in the morning? But 
it should never be forgotten, in speaking of Chaucer, 
that he was among the first to resort to that precious 
fountain which his contemporary Wickliffe had opened, 
and that he drank of the " water springing up to ever- 
lasting life." 

From the death of Chaucer to the reign of Henry the 
Eighth, the nation made little progress in intellectual 
improvement 3 the morning- stars of our poetry went 
down in darkness, and the historian surveys a long and 
dreary period of war and wretchedness. Henry ascended 

• See the Essay upon the Versification of Chaucer prefixed to the 
Edition of his works by Tyrwhit, vol. i. 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

the throne at a most auspicious season 5 and even the 
evils attending his father's policy may be said to have 
ultimately promoted the good of the country. The rapid 
advances of "fine literature */' a ^ a time when the king- 
dom rang with religious controversy, is indeed astonish- 
ing. The chivalrous character of the youthful Monarch, 
and the magnificence with which he invested the govern- 
ment, must have been powerful instruments in awaken- 
ing the imagination. He was, moreover, well versed in 
the scholastic learning of the age, with which his mind 
had been imbued in childhood ; his praise was the 
theme of his noblest and most accomplished contempo- 
raries. Erasmus beheld in him the parent of the 
golden age, and the amiable Melancthon delighted to 
compare him to the most illustrious of the Ptolemies, 
when the glory of Athens had passed into Alexandria, 
and kings rejoiced in the companionship of poets and 
philosophers. In the later years of his life, the mind of 
Henry underwent a melancholy change -, but that the 
love of goodness and of learning never entirely forsook 
him, the professorships he founded at Oxford and Cam- 
bridge, in 1540, for Greek, Hebrew, civil law, divinity, 
and medicine, abundantly testify f. 

The Reformation, while it introduced a fresh princi- 
ple in the habits and feelings of the people, especially 
affected the structure of our poetry. The unsealed 
Book was studied with enthusiasm and religious delight. 
The brief and troubled reign of Edward the Sixth 
abounded with metrical translations of various parts of 

* Southey's Specimens of the later English Poets, vol. i. 

t It is scarcely necessary to refer the reader to Turner's History of 
the Reign of Henry the Eighth, and Dr. Nott's elaborate edition of the 
Earl of Surrey's Foems, for an ingenious and interesting account of the 
literature of this era. 



STERNHOLD AND HOPKINS. 3 

the Scriptures. The principal of these, and the only- 
one to which I shall refer, is the well-known version of 
the Psalms by Sternhold and Hopkins. 

The metrical Psalmody of John Huss and Martin 
Luther, in Germany, had been followed by the transla- 
tion of Clement Marot, in France. It was undertaken 
at the request, and made from the version, of the cele- 
brated Vatable, professor of Hebrew in the University 
of Paris, one of the most learned men of the age, and 
the restorer of the study of Hebrew in France. The 
favourite of Francis the First and his Court, Marot's 
Sainctes Chansonettes , became universally popular, and 
were sung by the Monarch and his peers. Their publi- 
cation was, however, attended with much inconvenience, 
and some danger to the poet. The Sorbonne discovered 
errors in the translation, and complained of them to the 
King 3 but Francis, who admired the poet, paid little 
attention to their remonstrances, and Marot, in some 
verses, alludes to the offending the Sorbonne as the 
natural result of pleasing the King. The sale of the 
work was, however, forbidden, and he subsequently 
found it necessary to retreat to Geneva*. 

The infectious phrensy of sacred song, says Warton, 
soon reached England, at the very critical point of time 
when it had just embraced the Reformation. Wyatt and 
Surrey had, before this period, translated various psalms 
into verse, but the version of Sternhold was the first 
introduced into the Church of England. Sternhold, 
who had received a collegiate education, was groom of 
the robes to Henry the Eighth ; a situation which, we 
are told by Braithwait, he obtained by his poetical 

* To the edition of Marot's Psalms published at Geneva in 1543, 
Calvin prefixed a Preface. See Dunster's Considerations on Psalmody. 

B 2 



4 STERNHOLD AND HOPKINS. 

talents*. He retained his office in the court of Edward 
the Sixth. 

Warton has pointed out a "coincidence of circum- 
stances" between Sternhold and Marot. They were, 
indeed, both laymen and court poets, and Sternhold 
dedicated his translation to Edward, as Marot had done 
to Francis : I think the parallel extends no further. 
Sternhold, of a serious, ardent, and upright mind, seems 
to have been entirely destitute of literary talent and 
poetical feeling; Marot, on the contrary, the idol of a 
romantic Court, negligent and luxurious in his life, was 
endowed with a grace of style, a sportiveness of fancy, 
and a pathos of sentiment, not often in later times so 
harmoniously blended. With him, in fact, the history 
of real French poetry commences ; even his antiquity is 
only external. II riy a guere, observes La Bruyere, 
entre Marot et nous que la difference de quelques mots, Stern- 
hold, I believe, departed from life as he had lived, in 
prosperity and comfort 5 Marot in poverty and desti- 
tution. 

Of Sternhold' s fellow- labourer Hopkins, nothing more 
than the profession has been ascertained 5 he was a 
clergyman and schoolmaster in Suffolk, and Warton 
considers him a rather better poet than Sternhold. 
Among the other contributors to the collective version, 
we may notice William Whyttingham, the friend of 
Calvin and Knox, and an inferior versifier even to the 
preceding f. Thomas Norton, more favourably known 
as the assistant of Lord Buckhurst in the drama of 

* English Gentleman, p. 191. 1630. 

t William Kethe (W. K.) was also a considerable contributor; M. 
Haslewood (Censura Lit. v. 10), assigns twenty-five Psalms to his pen. 
Soon after the accession of Mary, Kethe fled to Geneva. The names of 
" William Kethe and his wife" occur in the Livre des Anglois a Geneve, 
November 5, 1556. 



REIGN OF MARY. 

Gorboduc ; Robert Wisdome, whose fears of the Pope 
and the Turk were ridiculed by the (C witty, generous, 
and eloquent" Bishop Corbet $ and T. C, supposed to 
be Thomas Churchyard, a most indefatigable writer of 
" sad and heavy verses*." 

Sternhold died in 1549, and the fifty-one psalms 
versified by him were printed in the same year 5 the 
complete version was published in 1562. 

After the death of the Earl of Surrey,, the only work 
of genius produced before Spenser, was Lord Buck- 
hurst's Induction to the Mirrour for Magistrates ; the 
conception of his youthful mind, but abounding in the 
rugged grandeur and sublimity of Dante. 

Under the gloomy tyranny of Mary, poetry obtained 
little attention ; but, though discouraged, it was not 
destroyed f. The River of Gold was only hidden for a 
season, that it might flow forth in a more majestic 
torrent in the happier reign of her successor. 

To Spenser must be assigned the glory of having 
delivered the Muse from the lethargy that had so long 
oppressed her. The appearance of the Faery Queen must 

* Churchyard entitled his tribute to the memory of Whitgift, Sad and 
Heavy Verses for the Losse of Archbishop Whitgift. The supposition 
that the initials T. C. belong to Churchyard is rendered still more pro- 
bable by his extended age. Mr. Chalmers, in his Apology for the 
Believers in the Shakspeare MSS., observes, p. 65, (n) 2, that he dis- 
covered from the Parish Register of St. Margaret's, Westminster, that 
Churchyard's burial took place the 4th of April, 1604. 

t The Paradise of Dainty Devises may be considered as belonging 
rather to the reign of Mary than Elizabeth. The first edition appeared 
in 1576. The terror of Mary's Government, as Sir Egerton Brydges 
has observed, tended to produce a moral severity, for which some of 
the poems in this collection are remarkable. One of the ablest contri- 
butors is Lord Vaux ; in the first edition thirteen poems are attributed to 
his pen. In some we remark a plaintive tenderness, and in others a grand 
austerity of tone sometimes approaching to sublimity, as in the lines on 
the ln^tabilitie of Youth. That Lord Vaux possessed a vein of fancy, is 
proved by the Assault of Cupid, which has been inserted in Bishop 
Percy's Reliques of Poetry. He seems to have passed a virtuous and 
tranquil life, and to have died about the year 1555. 



SPENSER. 

have been like the sudden rushing of an "Arabian 
heaven" upon the night of our poetry. The rising star 
of Shakspeare had not yet dispelled the darkness. To 
the reader, whose opinion of Spenser is not formed 
upon an accurate acquaintance with his poems, John 
Wesley's advice to the Methodists, who were desirous of 
proceeding through a course of academical learning, 
may appear paradoxical : he recommended them, in 
their second year, to combine with the study of the 
historic books of the Hebrew Bible and the Greek 
Testament, the reading of the Faery Queen. And yet 
nothing more clearly displays the penetration of this 
remarkable individual than the advice referred to. That 
Spenser intended the Faery Queen to be a truly moral 
and religious poem, setting forth the rules and conduct 
of life, there can be no question. This fact, indeed, 
appears to be satisfactorily substantiated by a passage 
in Lodowick Bryskett's Discourse of Civill Life, pub- 
lished in 1606*, to which Mr. Todd has the merit of 
having first directed particular attention. In this Trea- 
tise a desire is expressed, that Spenser would " set down 
in English the precepts of those parts of moral philoso- 
phy, whereby our youth might speedily enter into the 
right course of virtuous life -, " and the poet is repre- 
sented as saying, in reply, that " he had already under- 
taken a work tending to the same effect, which was in 
heroic verse, under the title of a Faerie Queen, to repre- 
sent all the moral virtues, assigning to every virtue a 
knight, to be the patron and defender of the same -, in 
whose actions, the feats of arms and chivalry, the opera- 
tions of that virtue whereof he is the protector, are to 
be expressed -, and the vices and unruly appetites that 

* But written, according to the conjecture of Malone, between 1584 
and 1589. 



SPENSER. / 

oppose themselves against the same, are to be beaten 
down and overcome." 

In thus rendering chivalry subservient to a great 
moral purpose, it should be remembered that Spenser 
was adopting a method the most likely to render his 
work interesting and successful. The scenes he de- 
scribed had not then faded from the eyes of the people. 
The gorgeous tournament, and the picturesque splendour 
of knight-pageantry were not become old and forgotten 
things. Sir Philip Sidney tilted at one of the entertain- 
ments given to the French Ambassador, and not long 
before, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, the romantic 
Earl of Surrey had made a pilgrimage to Florence, the 
birth-place of his mistress, and publicly challenged the 
world in defence of her beauty. If, therefore, the story 
of the Faery Queen makes but a slight demand upon our 
sympathy, we must recollect that Spenser addressed 
himself to the sixteenth century, and not the nineteenth, 
and that the " fierce wars and faithful loves" were only 
employed "to moralize his song." Thus, in allusion 
to the characteristic features of Spenser's poetry, Bishop 
Hall speaks of his "misty moral types 3" Drayton 
called him "grave moral Spenser 5" and Milton men- 
tions him affectionately as, " our sage serious Spenser," 
whom he was not afraid to think " a better teacher than 
Scotus or Aquinas." 

But the claims of Spenser to the title of Sacred Poet 
are to be estimated as much by the treasures we have 
lost, as by those we possess. We seek in vain for his 
translation of Ecclesiastes, and of the Canticum Cantico- 
rum, the Hours of Our Lord, the Sacrifice of a Sinner, 
and the Seven Psalms. Of these precious works it 
would now be idle to expect the recovery. 



8 ROBERT SOUTHWELL. 

One of the least known, though certainly not the least 
deserving, writers of the age of Elizabeth, was Robert 
Southwell. His poetical compositions do not entitle him 
to an elevated rank either by their fancy or their power, 
yet they contain many thoughts that often " lie too deep 
for tears," and as " a warbler of poetic prose/' he will 
be found to have few rivals. 

Southwell was born about the year 1560, at St. Faith's 
in Norfolk, and having been partially educated at the 
English College in Douay, he was received into the 
Society of the Jesuits*. In 1 584 he returned a missionary 
to England ; but his own country had few charms for the 
enthusiastic Jesuit. His father appears to have inclined 
to the reformed religion, for Southwell upbraids him 
with dwelling too long in the "tabernacles of sinners," 
and with having " strayed too far from the fold of God's 
church." The Epistle he addressed to his father soon 
after his return, is warmed by a strain of energetic 
eloquence. "With young Tobias," he says, "I have 
travelled far, and brought home some freight of spiritual 
good to enrich you, and medicinal receipts against your 
ghostly maladies. I have, with Esau, after long toil in 
pursuing a painful chase, returned with the full prey you 
were wont to love, desiring thereby to ensure your 
blessing. I have, in this general famine of all true and 
Christian food, prepared abundance of the bread of 
angels for the repast of your soul. And now my desire 
is that my drugs may cure you, my prey delight you, 
and my provision feed you, by whom I have been 
delighted and fed myself." 

* Life prefixed to St. Peter's Complaint by J. Walter, 1817; Wood 
Aiken. Oxon.\ and Dod Church History, b. 2. p. 48. Fuller (Worthies 
of Suffolk, p. 71,) says that Southwell was born in Suffolk, upon the 
authority of Pitts, who professed to have been intimately acquainted with 
the poet at Rome. 



ROBERT SOUTHWELL. \) 

The following allusion to the old age of his parent is 
marked by a quaint sublimity ; " The full of your spring- 
tide is now fallen, and the stream runneth to a low ebb ; 
your tired bark beginneth to leak, and grateth oft upon 
the gravel of the grave * '." 

I regret that my limits will not allow me to offer 
more copious extracts from this Treatise, but to the 
reader who may have the good fortune to possess a 
copy, I can recommend it as a noble specimen of hor- 
tatory theology, which they who u least love the writer's 
religion,' may study with advantage. 

The talents and piety of Southwell procured for him 
the friendship of many distinguished individuals, and 
especially of Anne, Countess of Arundel, with whom he 
resided in the capacity of chaplain until July 1592 f. 

In this month he was apprehended on a charge of 
sedition, at Uxenden in Middlesex, and committed to a 
dungeon in the Tower, where he underwent many mise- 
ries. He was subsequently removed, through the inter- 
position of his father, to a less wretched chamber, and 
the use of a few books was permitted : he chose the 
Bible and the works of St. Bernard. Southwell's impri- 
sonment lasted three year's, and during that period he 
is said to have been put to the torture several times. 
How serenely he endured his afflictions may be learnt 
from his Epistle of Comfort, which is replete with the 
warmest piety and the most glowing imagination. At 
the expiration of three years he wrote to Cecil, the Lord 

* Quarles has a passage very similar in his Judgment and Mercy for 
afflicted Souls, fyc. "The spring-tides of my plenty are spent, and I am 
gravelled on the low ebbs of want."— See The Widow. 

t The letters of this unfortunate lady to her children are said to be 
written with much piety and tenderness ; the melancholy death of Lord 
Arundel weighed heavily upon her spirits. — Lodge's Illustrations, v. 3. 
p. 357. 



10 ROBERT SOUTHWELL. 

Treasurer, entreating either that a day might be appointed 
for his trial, or that his relations and friends might, at 
least, be allowed to visit him. Cecil is said to have 
replied, that if he was in so much haste to be hanged, he 
should quickly have his desire ; and the taunting threat 
of the minister was speedily fulfilled. On the 20th of 
February, Southwell was removed from Newgate, and 
carried to Westminster, where he was tried and con- 
demned to death 3 and, on the following day, he under- 
went the infliction of the law at Tyburn*. He died 
with a calmness and piety worthy of a purer creed. 

It may be urged, in extenuation of the severity exer- 
cised towards Southwell, that the season was one of more 
than common agitation and alarm. Numerous conspi- 
racies continued to be formed against the Queen, and 
they were rendered still more dangerous by the mystery 
and secrecy that enveloped them. I am not aware that 
any satisfactory proof was furnished of Southwell's guilt, 
but a few words spoken in a moment of enthusiasm were 
sufficient to furnish the spies, scattered throughout the 
country, with an opportunity of denouncing him. South- 
well certainly possessed the intolerance and presumption, 
as well as the persevering energy of his order. 

The Triumphs over Death, and St. Peter s Complaint, 
have been reprinted, the first by Sir Egerton Brydges, 
and the last by Mr. J. Walter, who speaks of the 
author with an ardour inspired by a community of 
belief. 

* In Stow's Chronicle, Ed. 1631, p. 769, Southwell is said to have suf- 
fered on the day after his conviction ; but Fuller fixes the date of the 
execution on the 3rd of March ; and in a tract entitled the Rat Trap, or 
the Jesuits taken in their own net, 1641, the 20th of September is named. 
— Gent. Mag. v. lxviii. pt. 2, p. 933. Mr. Walter, who from his ac- 
quaintance with Southwell's writings, is an authority worthy of attention, 
coincides with Stow. 



ROBERT SOUTHWELL. 11 

I am induced to give an extract from the former 
work, both on account of its extreme elegance, and the 
general ignorance subsisting of the merits of the writer. 
It is the character of Lady Margaret Sackville upon 
whose death the Triumphs were composed*. 

" She was by birth second to none, but unto the first 
in the realm 5 yet she measured only greatness by 
goodness, making nobility but the mirror of virtue, as 
able to show things worthy to be seen, as apt to draw 
many eyes to behold it 5 she suited her behaviour to her 
birth, and ennobled her birth with her piety, leaving her 
house more beholden to her for having honoured it with 
the glory of her virtues, than she was to it for the titles of 
her degree. She was high-minded but in aspiring to 
perfection, and in the disdain of vice 5 in other things 
covering her grace with humility among her inferiors, 
and showing it with courtesy among her peers. Of her 
carriage of herself, and her sober government, it may be 
sufficient testimony that envy herself was dumb in her 
dispraise, finding in her much to repine at, but nought to 
reprove. The clearness of her honour I need not mention, 
she having always armed it with such modesty as taught 
the most intemperate tongues to be silent in her pre- 
sence, and answered their eyes with scorn and contempt 
that did seem to make her an aim to passion. . . . 
How mildly she accepted the check of fortune fallen 
upon her without desert, experience has been a most 
manifest proof; the temper of her mind being so easy 
that she found little difficulty in taking down her 

* Lady Margaret Sackville, wife of the Honourable Robert Sackville, 
son and heir apparent of Thomas, then Lord Buckhurst, whom he suc- 
ceeded as second Earl of Dorset in 1608. She was the daughter of 
Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. — See Advertisement to the Triumphs 
over Death, in the Archaica y vol. i., 1814. 



12 ROBERT SOUTHWELL. 

thoughts to a mean degree, which true honour, not 
pride, has raised to a former height 3 her faithfulness 
and love, where she found true friendship, are written 
with tears in many eyes. 

" Where she owed, she paid piety 5 where she found 
she turned courtesy 3 wheresoever she was known, she 
deserved amity • desiring the best, yet disdaining none 
but evil company 3 she was readier to requite benefits, 
than revenge wrongs 3 more grieved than angry with 
unkindness of friends, when either mistaking or mis- 
report occasioned any breaches. . . In sum, she was 
an honour to her predecessors, a light to her age, and a 
pattern to her posterity 3 neither was her conclusion dif- 
ferent from her premises, or her end from her life 3 she 
showed no dismay, being warned of her danger, carrying 
in her conscience the safe- conduct of innocency. But 
having sent her desires before, with a mild countenance 
and a most calm mind, in more hope than fear, she ex- 
pected her own passage. She commended both her 
duty and good will to all her friends, and cleared her 
heart from all grudge towards her enemies, wishing true 
happiness to them both, as best became so soft and 
gentle a mind, in which anger never stayed but as an 
unwelcome stranger." 

The following affected yet picturesque passage towards 
the conclusion, might have been written by Crashaw : 
it has all the onction of the poetry of that gifted and 
unfortunate enthusiast : 

"She departed, like Jephtha's daughter, from her 
father's house, but to pass some months in wandering 
about the mountains of this troublesome world, which 
being now expired, she was, after her pilgrimage, by 
covenant to return, to be offered unto God in a grateful 



ROBERT SOUTHWELL. 13 

sacrifice, and to ascend out of this desert like a stem 
{steam ?) of perfume out of burned spices *." 

The poems of Southwell, like the Canticles of 
Racine, have few adornments of fancy. They possess 
all the simplicity of truth. In the dedication to his 
"Loving Cousin," prefixed to St. Peter s Complaint, he 
objects to the "idle fancies" with which the "devil 
possesses most poets," and limits his ambition to the 
weaving a " new web in his own loom," for which pur- 
pose he laid "a few coarse threads together:" Many of 
these threads have wound themselves round the heart. 
I ought not to forget the affectionate memorial of South- 
well by Ben Jonson, who told Drummond of Haw- 
thornden, " that so he had written that piece of his, the 
Burning Babe, he would have been contented to have 
destroyed many of his." Jonson, who had himself 
become a convert to the Roman Catholic faith, may be 
supposed to have felt acutely the unhappy termination 
of Southwell's existence 3 but I think his admiration of 
the Burning Babe scarcely supported by the merit of the 
composition, many other poems more deserved the 
eulogy 5 to employ Southwell's own affected, but ex- 
pressive phrase, some of his "tunes are tears." 

The lines Upon the Picture of Death, are very simple 
and touching: — 

Before my face the picture hangs, 

That daily should put me in mind 
Of those cold names and bitter pangs, 

That shortly I am like to find : 
But yet, alas, full little I 
Do think thereon, that I must die. 

* This image is employed by Milton; the voice of the "Lady," in 
Comus, is described as rising " like a steam of rich distilled perfumes." 
The resemblance was probably accidental, but it deserves notice. 



14 ROBERT SOUTHWELL. 

I often look upon a face, 

Most ugly, grisly, bare, and thin ; 
I often view the hollow place, 

Where eyes and nose have sometimes been. 
I see the bones across that lie, 
Yet little think that I must die. 

The gown which I do use to wear, 
The knife wherewith I cut my meat, 

And eke that old and ancient chair 
Which is my only usual seat : 

All these do tell me I must die, 

And yet my life amend not I. 

My ancestors are turned to clay, 

And many of my mates are gone ; 
My youngers daily drop away, 

And can I think to 'scape alone ? 
No, no, I know that I must die, 
And yet my life amend not I. 

If none can 'scape death's dreadful dart, 

If rich and poor his beck obey, 
If strong, if wise, if all do smart, 

Then I to 'scape shall have no way. — 
O grant me grace, O God, that I 
My life may mend sith* I must die. 

The allusions in the third stanza may, to some 
readers, appear even too natural, but the student, who 
has been accustomed to regard the old table upon which 
he writes with an affectionate interest, and to associate 
its "familiar face" with some long- cherished task, will 
appreciate the domestic pathos of the imagery. Mr. 
Ellis, upon the authority of Anthony Wood, assigns this 
poem to Simon Wastell, a native of Westmoreland, and 
a member of Queen's College, Oxford, in 1580. Wood 

* Since. A word in general acceptation among all the elder poets. 



BARNABE BARNES. 15 

fell into some strange errors with respect to Southwell - } 
he positively asserts that St. Peters Complaint was 
written by John Davies of Hereford, although the evi- 
dence of its being the composition of Southwell is very 
satisfactory *. Dr. Bliss, in his improved edition of the 
Athence Oxonienses has corrected this mistake. 

The admirers of Southwell's poetry will not withhold 
their sympathy from the Divine Centurie of Spiritual 
Sonnets, by his contemporary Barnabe Barnes. This 
little collection of poems, originally published in 1595, 
has been reprinted by Mr. Park in his Heliconia, but, 
owing to the very expensive form of the work, without 
adding much to their popularity. Barnes, upon whom 
the flattery of friendship bestowed the appellation of 
Petrarch's scholar, while it elevated him to an equality 
with Spenser, was the subject of frequent satire during 
his life. Few particulars of his history have been pre- 
served. He was a younger son of Dr. Richard Barnes, 
Bishop of Durham, and was born about the year 1569. 
At the age of seventeen he became a student of Brazen- 
nose College, Oxford, but left the university without a 
degree. "What became of him afterwards," says Wood, 
f I know not." He appears, however, to have accompanied 
the expedition sent to France by Elizabeth, in 1591, 
under the command of Devereux, Earl of Essex. He 
was then in his twenty- second year, and he probably re- 
mained in that country until 1594. 

Nash accuses him of running away from battle, and 
of subsequently disgracing himself still more, by robbing 

* Edmund Bolton, an old English critic, in his Hypercritica, has this 
notice of Southwell : " Never must be forgotten St. Peter's Complaint, 
and those other serious poems said to be Father Southwell's, the 
English whereof, as it is most proper, so the sharpness and light of wit 
is very rare in them." 



10 BARNABE BARNES. 

a nobleman's steward of a gold chain. But these 
charges rest upon no foundation, and were probably the 
result of malignity on the part of Nash, who remem- 
bered that Barnes had sided with Gabriel Harvey in one 
of the numerous quarrels which, at that period, agitated, 
in no very decorous manner, the literary public '*. 

The sonnets, we are told by the author, were composed 
during his travels in France, and seem to have been 
viewed by him in the light of religious exercises. He 
speaks of them as "prescribed tasks." No person can 
read them, I think, without feeling his thoughts calmed, 
and his faith strengthened. The piety of the writer does 
not chill us with the austerity of its features -, it is 
humble, joyful, and confident. In the ninety- second 
sonnet he says, alluding to the earnestness of his devotion, 
On my soul's knees I lift my spirit's palms. 

And this prayer may incline the reader to acknowledge 
the truth of the assertion. 

O benign Father ! let my suits ascend 

And please thy gracious ears from my soul sent, 
Even as those sweet perfumes of incense went 

From our forefathers' altars, who didst lend 

* Thomas Nash was the contemporary of Greene, the dramatic poet, 
at Cambridge, and took his B. A. degree at St. John's, in 1585. His 
name is familiar to all students of our old poetry, as the bitter antagonist 
of Gabriel Harvey. This singular man, who united to ripe scholarship 
a very ridiculous propensity for writing verses, enjoyed considerable 
popularity in his day. He was the friend of Spenser, with whom he 
became acquainted at Cambridge, and to whose Faery Queen he pre- 
fixed the sweetest lines he ever wrote. But Harvey's vanity surpassed 
all his other qualifications. Upon his return from Italy he dressed him- 
self in the Venetian costume, and was remarkable for the uncommon 
richness and costliness of his attire. The circumstance, however, of his 
father having been a rope-maker at Saffron Walden, seems to have im- 
bittered his life. Hence arose his enmity to the unhappy Greene, who 
some weeks before his death published a tract containing reflections upon 
rope-makers in general. — See the very able and careful edition of the 
works of Robert Greene, by the Rev. Alexander Dyce,vol. i., p. 84, &c. 



BARNABE BARNES. 17 

Thy nostrils to that myrrh which they did send, 

Even as I now crave thine ears to be lent. 

My soul, my soul is wholly bent 
To do thee condigne* service and amend ; 

To flee for refuge to thy wounded breast, 
To suck the balm of my salvation thence, 

In sweet repose to take eternal rest, 
As thy child folded in thine arms defence. 
But then my flesh, methought by Sathan fird, 
Said my proud sinful soul in vain aspird. 

If Ben Jonson, as we are told by Drummond, 
cf cursed Petrarch for redacting verses into sonnets/' 
which he compared to that " tyrant's bed where some 
who were too short, were racked, others, too long, cut 
short," the sonnets of Barnes could not have escaped 
his censure. They are written with an almost constant 
adherence to the returning rima of the Italian sonetto, 
but Barnes frequently continues the sense beyond the 
termination of the line — a practice considered by Warton 
deserving of commendation. 

When Dr. Bliss published his edition of Anthony 
Wood's Athence Oxonienses, the following address to 
Content was the only poem by Barnes with which he was 
acquainted, but it certainly justified his desire to know 
more. 

Ah ! sweet Content, where is thy mild abode ? 

Is it with shepherds and light-hearted swains, 
Which sing upon the downs and pipe abroad, 

Leading f their flocks and calling unto plains ! 

Ah ! sweet Content, where dost thou safely rest ? 
In heaven with angels which the praises sing 
Of Him that made, and rolls at his behest, 

The minds, and parts of every living thing ! 

* Worthy. 

t The word in the original is sending, but it seemed to me an error of 
the press. c 



18 HENRY CONSTABLE. 

Ah ! sweet Content, where doth thine harbour hold? 
Is it in churches with religious men 
Which praise the Gods with prayers manifold, 

And in their studies meditate it then ? 

Whether thou dost in heaven or earth appeare, 

Be where thou wilt, thou wilt not harbour here. 

The last couplet is sweetly pathetic. 

I cannot refrain from adding one more sonnet 5 to 
all, save the antiquarian in poetical literature, Barnes will 
be a new poet. 

Unto my spirit lend an angel's wing, 

By which it might mount to that place of rest, 

Where paradise may me relieve opprest : 

Lend to my tongue an angel's voice to sing 

Thy praise my comfort ; and for ever bring 

My notes thereof from the bright east to west ; 

Thy mercy lend unto my soul distrest, 

Thy grace unto my wits ; then shall the sling 

Of Righteousness that monster Sathan kill, 

Who with dispair my dear salvation dared, 

And, like the Philistine, stood breathing still 

Proud threats against my soul; for heaven prepared, 

At length I like an angel shall appear, 

In spotless white an angel's robe to wear. 

A passing notice maybe given of Henry Constable, 
another poet belonging to this period, and as little known 
as the preceding. His Spiritual Sonnets to the Honour of 
his God and his Saints, were first printed in the Heliconia, 
from a MS. in the Harleian collection. Of Constable 
himself little is known. Sir John Harrington calls him 
"a well-learned gentleman, and noted sonnet- writer." 
Malone thinks he was of St. John's College, Cambridge, 
and took his degree of B.A. in 1579 3 and Dr. Birch sup- 
poses him to have been a zealous Roman Catholic, and 
compelled, by his religious tenets, to reside abroad during 



HENRY CONSTABLE. 19 

a considerable portion of the reign of Elizabeth. This 
opinion is countenanced by the general tone of his 
poems, and by several letters addressed, during his 
absence, to his friends in England. 

He was a favourite of Ben Jon son, who speaks of 
" Constable's ambrosiack music." 

I have only room for one Sonnet"*. 

To Saint Mary Magdalen. 

Such as retired from sight of men like thee, 
By penance seek the joys of heaven to win, 
In deserts make their paradise begin, 

And even amongst wild beasts do angels see, 

In such a place my soul doth seem to be. 
When in my body she laments my sin, 
And none but brutal passions finds therein, 
Except they be sent down from heaven to me. 

Yet if these praises God to me impart, 

Which He inspired my blessed heart with all, 
I may find heaven in my retired heart ! 

And if thou change the object of my love, 
The wing'd Affection, which men Cupid call, 
May get his sight, and like an angel prove. 

Constable occasionally indulges in allusions more 
applicable to his <s vainer hours," than these specimens 
of his "calmer thought." The concluding couplet of 
this sonnet affords an instance of this ill-taste. 

Among the Harleian MSS., 6930, is a version of 
selected Psalms by Francis and Christopher Davison, 
W. Bagnall, Richard Gipps, and J. Bryan f. The MS. 

• " Noble Henry Constable was a great master in English tongue, nor 
had any gentleman of our nation a more pure, quick, or higher delivery 
of conceit." — Bolton s Hypercritica. Unfortunately, the sonnet instanced 
by the worthy critic in support of his good opinion, is almost the worst 
ever written by the author. 

t Mr. Todd mentions another MS. of this version in the Bridgewater 
Library, now in the possession of the Marquess of Stafford. 

c 2 



20 FRANCIS DAVISON. 

extends to 1 13 pages, and is very beautifully transcribed. 
Francis Davison, who is the principal contributor, has 
prefixed an Introduction to the translation. Specimens 
of these Psalms have been annexed, by Sir Egerton 
Brydges, to his reprint of the Poetical Rhapsody. 

Francis Davison, well known as the editor of the 
Poetical Rhapsody, was the son of William Davison, the 
unfortunate Secretary of Queen Elizabeth -, a man 
whose probity and excellence appear to have been un- 
questioned, even by his enemies, and who may be con- 
sidered the victim of the deceit of Elizabeth, and the 
pusillanimous treachery of her ministers. In 1593, 
Francis became a member of Gray's Inn, and before he 
completed his twentieth year, he wrote the speeches of 
the Gray's Inn Masque, printed in Nichols's Progresses 
of Queen Elizabeth. In 1595 he was on the Continent, 
and, on his return, appears to have relinquished his 
former pursuits, and devoted himself to poetry. Mr. 
John Chamberlain, writing to Sir Dudley Carleton, on 
the 8th of July, 1602, alludes to the circumstance. — 
" It seems young Davison means to take another course, 
and turn poet ; for he has lately sent out certain sonnets 
and epigrams*." The first edition of the Poetical 
Rhapsody was published in 1602. The fall of his father 
from his rank and dignities, and his subsequent imprison- 
ment and poverty, must have blighted the prospects of 
the young poet. After 1619 nothing has been discover- 
ed respecting him -, and it has been supposed that he 
shared what has been called, with melancholy truth, 
the common lot of genius — " an obscure life, and an 
early grave f." It was, perhaps, during hours of sorrow 

* Birch's MSS., Brit. Mus. 4173, p. 125. 

t Autographs of Royal, Noble, and Remarkable Persons, by J. G. 
Nichols; fol. 1829. 



FRANCIS DAVISON. 21 

and penury, that these beautiful versions of the Psalms 
were composed ; and I coincide with Sir Egerton Brydges 
in the opinion that they elevate the poet to a more 
distinguished place than his lighter compositions, writ- 
ten, he tells us, in his younger days, "at idle times," as 
he journeyed " up and down" in his travels. 

The following Paraphrase of the twenty-third Psalm 
will show that Davison could touch the harp of Sion 
with a grace and skill not unworthy the "sweet finger" 
of the Royal Minstrel. This Psalm has also been trans- 
lated by Crashaw, with a richness and felicity of diction 
peculiarly his own. I shall speak of it more fully in the 
life of that poet. 

God, who the universe doth hold 

In his fold, 
Is my shepherd kind and heedful, 
Is my Shepherd, and doth keep 

Me his sheep, 
Still supplied with all things needful. 

He feeds me in fields which been *, 

Fresh and green, 
Mottled with Spring's flowery painting, 
Through which creep with murmuring crooks, 

Crystal brooks, 
To refresh my spirits fainting. 

When my soul from heaven s way 

Went astray, 
With earth's vanities seduced, 
For his namesake, kindly He, 

Wandering me 
To his holy fold reduced f. 

Yea, though I stray through Death's vale, 
Where his pale 

* So in the original MS. \ Reduced, led back. 



22 FRANCIS DAVISON. 

Shades did on each side enfold me, 
Dreadless, having Thee for guide, 

Should I bide, 
For thy rod and staff uphold me. 

Donne adopted this metre, with a slight variation, in 
his version of the 137th Psalm. 

The following verse from the 130th Psalm is very 
beautifully rendered. The alliteration in the fourth line 
is the only defect. 

My soul base earth despising, 

More longs with God to be ; 
Than rosy morning's rising 

Tired watchmen watch to see ! 

I have omitted a few lines in this version of the 
thirteenth Psalm. 

Lord, how long, how long wilt Thou 
Quite forget and quite neglect me ? 

How long with a frowning brow 
Wilt Thou from thy sight reject me ? 

How long shall I seek a way 

From this maze of thoughts perplex'd, 

Where my griev'd mind, night and day, 
Is with thinking tired and vexd ! 

How long shall my stormful foe 

On my fall his greatness placing, 
Build upon my overthrow, 

And be graced by my disgracing ? 

Hear, O Lord and God, my cries, 

Mock my foe's unjust abusing, 
And illuminate mine eyes, 

Heavenly beams in them infusing. 

Lest my woes, too great to bear, 
And too infinite to number, 



FRANCIS DAVISON. 23 

Rock me soon, 'twixt Hope and Fear, 
Into Death's eternal slumber. 

These black clouds will overflow, 

Sunshine shall have his returning, 
And my grief-dull'd heart, I know, 

Into joy shall change his mourning. 

Grief -dulled is a very picturesque epithet. 

I shall conclude my specimens with the 86th Psalm. 

Save my soul which Thou didst cherish 
Until now, now like to perish, 
Save Thy servant that hath none 
Help, nor hope, but Thee alone ! \ 

After Thy sweet-wonted fashion, 
Shower down mercy and compassion, 
On me, sinful wretch, that cry 
Unto Thee incessantly. 

Send, O send, relieving gladness, 
To my soul oppress'd with sadness, 
Which, from clog of earth set free, 
Wing'd with zeal springs up to Thee. 

Let thine ears which long have tarried 
Barred up, be now unbarred, 
That my cries may entrance gain, 
And being entered grace obtain. 

For Thou, darter of dread thunders, 
Thou art great, and workest wonders. 
Other gods are wood and stone, 
Thou the living God alone. 

Heavenly Tutor, of thy kindness 
Teach my dulness, guide my blindness, 
That my steps Thy paths may tread, 
Which to endless bliss do lead. 

In knots to be loosed never, 
Knit my heart to Thee for ever, 



24 FRANCIS DAVISON. 

That I to Thy name may hear, 
Fearful love, and loving fear. 

Lord my God, thou shalt be praised, 
With my heart to heaven raised, 
And whilst I have breath to live, 
Thanks to Thee my breath shall give. 

Mighty men with malice endless, 
Band* against me helpless, friendless, 
Using, without fear of Thee, 
Force and fraud to ruin me. 

But Thy might their malice passes, 
And Thy grace Thy might surpasses, 
Swift to mercy, slow to wrath, 
Bound nor end Thy goodness hath. 

Thy kind look no more deny me, 
But with eyes of mercy eye me ; 
O give me, Thy slave, at length, 
Easing aid, or bearing strength. 

And some gracious token show me, 
That my foes that watch t 1 oerthrow me, 
May be shamed and vexd to see 
Thee to help and comfort me. 

The fate of Davison recalls to my memory the accom- 
plished and unfortunate Sir Walter Raleigh, whom 
Spenser, in a beautiful sonnet, called the Summer s 
Nightingale. I think Mr. Tytler has clearly proved, 
in his recent Life of Raleigh, that the charges of irre- 
ligion so frequently brought against him, do not at all 
affect his later and maturer years. The afflictions of his 
manhood appear to have obliterated the vain and scep- 
tical feelings of his youth, and to have impressed his 
mind with a true sense of the Divine Power. During 
his long imprisonment, rendered still more melancholy 

* Unite. 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 25 

by the uncertainty of its issue,, he composed one or two 
touching Hymns, which testify the sincerity of his heart 
and the piety of his feelings. Probably the last words 
ever traced by his pen, were the lines written in his 
Bible on the evening preceding his execution, in which 
he renewed his expression of confidence in the mercy 
and intercession of our Saviour. 

The following Hymn requires no criticism to recom- 
mend it. 

Rise, oh, my soul, with thy desires to heaven, 

And with divinest contemplation use 
Thy time, where time's eternity is given, 

And let vain thoughts no more thy thoughts abuse : 
But down in darkness let them lie, 
So live thy better, let thy worse thoughts die. 

And thou, my soul, inspired with holy flame, 
View and review with most regardful eye 

That holy cross whence thy salvation came, 
On which thy Saviour and thy sin did die. 

For in that sacred object is much pleasure, 

And in that Saviour is my life, my treasure. 

To Thee, O Jesu, I direct my eyes, 

To thee my hands, to thee my humble knees, 

To thee my heart shall offer sacrifice, 

To thee my thoughts, who my thoughts only sees. 

To thee myself, myself and all I give ; 

To thee I die, to thee I only live. 

The lover of poetry will always regret that Raleigh's 
retreats to his charming seat, at Sherborne, were not 
more frequent, and of longer continuance 5 and that the 
"pure contents" which, in his own words, were wont to 
" pitch their tents" upon those pastures, were unable to 
detain him from the empty vanities of the court. 

I bring this hasty Introduction to an end with regret ; 



26 SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 

I have said little where my heart prompted me to say- 
much. I have been compelled to pass over, without 
notice, many who left their fame upon a harp-string, and 
from whose antique leaves might be gathered thoughts 
of the serenest piety and peace. Of some of these I 
shall have an opportunity of speaking in the following 
pages. I have walked through the burial-ground of 
our Elder Poets with no irreverent footstep, and I shall 
not have lingered there in vain, if I have renewed one 
obliterated inscription, or bound one flower upon their 
tomb. 



27 



GILES FLETCHER. 



Giles Fletcher, the author of one of the finest reli- 
gious poems to which the early part of the seventeenth 
century gave birth, has not received the attention due to 
his genius, either from his contemporaries, or from pos- 
terity. Yet in him and his brother Phineas we behold 
the two most gifted followers of Spenser ; in their hands 
the torch of allegorical poetry, if I may employ the 
metaphor, was extinguished, and transmitted to no suc- 
cessor. William Browne was rather the imitator of 
Spenser in his pastoral vein, than in the arabesque imagery 
of the Faerie Queen, Of Giles Fletcher's life little has 
hitherto been told, and that little imperfectly. Mr. 
Chalmers has reprinted Christ's Victorie, with a prefatory 
notice of the writer, in his edition of the British Poets, but 
without adding much, if any thing, to the previous stock 
of knowledge. In the following memoir something has, 
perhaps, been accomplished towards the illustration of 
the poet's history, and the additional facts relating to his 
father will not, it is trusted, be uninteresting. 

Dr. Giles Fletcher, the father of the poet, was the 
brother of Richard Fletcher, Bishop of London. Having 
been educated at Eton, in 1565, he was elected to King's 
College, Cambridge, where, in 1569, he took the degree 
of B.A.; that of M.A. in 1573; and LL.D. in 1581. 
Anthony Wood says that he became an excellent poet. 
The only specimens of his poetical talent I have seen 
are the verses upon the death of Walter Haddon *. 

* Haddon was a member of King's College, and one of the most 
eminent men of the age. His contemporaries speak in enthusiastic 



28 GILES FLETCHER. 

Fletcher's political talents appear to have been highly- 
appreciated by Elizabeth, who employed him as her 
Commissioner in Scotland, Germany, and the Low 
Countries. I have ascertained that he sat in Parliament 
in 1585, with Herbert Pelham, Esq., for the then 
flourishing town of Winchelsea*. In 1588, the memora- 
ble year of the Armada, he was sent to Russia, where 
he concluded a treaty with the Czar, beneficial to English 
commerce. Soon after his return, he published his ob- 
servations upon that country 5 they were, however, soon 
suppressed, and not reprinted until 1643. They were 
afterwards incorporated in Hackluyt's Voyages f. 

The worthy Fuller informs us that, upon Fletcher's 
arrival in London, he sent for his intimate friend Mr. 
Wayland, Prebendary of St. Paul's, and tutor to Fuller's 
father, "with whom he expressed his thankfulness to 

terms of his mental and personal accomplishments. Archbishop Cran- 
mer entertained a high opinion of his learning and talents, and availed 
himself of his advice and assistance in ecclesiastical affairs. Haddon 
died in London, February, 1571. His poems were collected by Thomas 
Hatcher, a fellow of the same college, and one of his warmest admirers. 

Mr. Park refers to Dr. Fletcher's poems in a note upon Warton's 
History of Poetry, but in a manner to incline the reader to suppose 
that the allusion was applicable to the author of Christ's Victorie. 

The work which is entitled Poematum Gualteri Haddoni Legum 
Doctoris, sparsim collectorum, Libri Duo, is exceedingly scarce. Thomas 
Baker, the well- known antiquary, considered his copy, which afterwards 
passed into the collection of the Bishop of Ely, to be almost unique. 
There is, however, a copy in the British Museum. 

* Notitia Parliamentarian, vol. iii., p. 107. 

t As a picture of Russia in its deepest ignorance and barbarism, the 
account of the " Russe Commonwealth" is very amusing. His descrip- 
tion of theological learning in Russia, towards the close of the sixteenth 
century, is singular, especially when contrasted with the glory of our 
own country at that period. Fletcher relates the following anecdote of 
a conversation with one of their " bishops, that are the choice men out 
of all their monasteries." He " offered him a Russe Testament, and 
turned him to the first chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, where he began 
to read in very good order. I asked him first, what part of Scripture it 
was that he had readl He answered that he could not well tell. How 
many evangelists there were in the New Testament 1 He said he knew 
not. How many apostles there were 1 He thought there were twelve." — 
p. 89, ed. 1591. 



GILES FLETCHER. 29 

God for his return from so great a danger." The quaint 
historian, in his careless way, talks of the emperor being 
habited in blood, and adds that, if he had cut off the am- 
bassador's head, he and his friends might have sought 
their own amends j but, says he, the question is, where 
he would have found it. Certainly, if Fuller alludes to the 
head, its recovery would have been very questionable. 
But this story of the Czar's cruelty is an invention. 
The reigning emperor was Theodore Ivanowich, and 
Dr. Fletcher expressly assures us that " he was verie 
gentle, of an easie nature, quiet and mercy ful." P. 110, 
ed. 1591. 

On his return, Fletcher was made secretary (town- 
clerk) to the city of London, and one of the Masters of 
the Court of Requests. The situation of treasurer of 
St. Paul's he seems to have resigned in 1610*. His 
death is thought to have taken place in the same year. 

Dr. Fletcher also wrote a very curious Discourse concern- 
ing the Tartars, which Whist on reprinted in his Memoirs. 

Giles Fletcher, the poet, we are told by Fuller, was 
born in the city of London \, and according to Mr. 
Chalmers's conjecture, about the year 1588 1. Fuller 

* I find under a notice of Bayly, Bishop of Bangor- 1610, 7 Febr. 

Ludov. Bayly, A.M., Admissus ad Thesaurariam S. Pauli, per Resig. 
Egidii Fletcheri, LL.D. Reg. Lond. — Wood, Athen. Oxon. ed 
Bliss, b. 2. 

t JVorthies of England, vol. ii., London, p. 82, ed. Nichols, 1811. 

X Chalmers (Biograph. Diet., Art " Fletcher") considers Giles 
the eldest son, whose birth he fixes in 1588, and that of Phineas, the 
younger, in 1584 ! The probability is, that Phineas was the elder. At 
the conclusion of the fourth book of Christ's Victorie, Giles speaks of 

The Kentish lad that lately taught 

His oaten reed the trumpet's silver sound. 

***** 

Let his shrill trumpet with her silver blast 
Of fair Eclecta and her spousal bed 
Be the sweet pipe, and smooth encomiast, 
But my green Muse hiding her younger head 



30 GILES FLETCHER. 

received his information from Mr. Ramsay, who married 
the poet's widow ; and it is to be regretted that his 
account is so brief and uncircumstantial. I think 
Fletcher's birth may be carried back two or three years, 
for we shall presently find him hailing the accession of 
James in 1603, in strains such as a boy of fourteen or 
fifteen could scarcely be expected to produce. He was 
sent, it appears, at an early age, to Westminster School, 
from which he was elected to Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge. This is the relation of Fuller 5 but I am unable 
to reconcile it with the declaration of Giles Fletcher 
himself. In the dedication of Christ's Victorie, to Dr. 
Nevil, he speaks with all the ardour of a young and 
noble heart of the kindness he had experienced from 
that excellent man. He mentions his having reached 
down " as it were out of heaven, a benefit of that nature 
and price, than which he could wish none (only heaven 
itself excepted) either more fruitful and contenting for 
the time that now is present, or more comfortable and 
encouraging for the time that is already past, or more 
hopeful and promising for the time that is yet to come." 
And further on, he expressly states that he was placed 
in Trinity College by Dr. Nevil's "only favour, most 
freely, vAthout either any means from other, or any desert" 
in himself. This praise could not have been consistent 
with truth, if Fletcher s had obtained his election from 
Westminster School*. Nevil merited the laudatory epi- 

Under old Chamus' flaggy banks that spread 
Their willow locks abroad, &c. 

Eclecta, or Intellect, in the Purple Island, is the leader of the virtues 
and good qualities of the heart. The Purple Island was, therefore, 
composed before the publication of Christ's Victorie. 

* Having been permitted to refer to the Register Book of Westminster 
School by the favour of the Key. — Williamson, the present Head 
Master, 1 am enabled to state positively that Fletcher was not elected 
from Westminster to Cambridge. There is no evidence that he was on 



GILES FLETCHER. 31 

thet applied to him by Camden*, whether we look upon 
him as the public benefactor of the college over which 
he presided, or in the still more endearing character of 
the benevolent and disinterested patron of the poor and 
the learned. Bishop Hacket was also a partaker of his 
generosity. Plume informs us, in his life of that prelate, 
that when Racket's father, although personally unknown 
to Dr. Nevil, applied to him for his interest to procure 
his son's election from Westminster to Trinity College, 
the worthy master replied, that the boy should go to 
Cambridge, "or he would carry him on his own back." 
I shall have occasion to recur to Nevil in the life of 
Herbert f. 

The accession of James furnished a theme of praise 
to all the nation ; " the very poets with their idle 
pamphlets," writes that unwearied correspondent Mr. 
Chamberlain, "promise themselves great part in his 
favour J." The University of Cambridge put forth its 
welcome under the ingenious title of Sorrowes Joy §, and 
the writers evinced their skill in blending their mourning 
with gladness, and while they lamented that "Phoebe" 

the foundation of the school. The probability is, that he was a Town- 
boy, and obtained the patronage of Dr. Nevil. 

* Mzyoc,/.o9roz<z"/is, " Magnificent." 

t Tor an interesting notice of Dr. Nevil, the reader is referred to 
Todd's Account of the Deans of Canterbury . He was appointed to the 
mastership of Trinity College by Queen Elizabeth in 1592-3, and we 
learn from a MS. quoted by Mr. Todd, and in his own possession, that 
before the departure of James from the University in 1614-15, he visited 
Dr. Nevil, who was too infirm to leave his rooms, and after having 
thanked him for the generosity and splendour of his entertainment, he 
concluded by saying that he was proud of such a subject. 

f In a letter to Sir Dudley Carleton, April 13, 1603. Printed in 
Nichols's Progresses of King James I. 

§ Sorrowes Joy, or a Lamentation for our Deceased Soveraigne Elizabeth, 
with a Triumph for the Prosperous Succession of our Gratious King 
James. Printed by John Legat, printer to the University of Cambridge, 
1603. 



32 GILES FLETCHER. 

was gone, they remembered that a " Phoebus" was 
shining in her place *. 

The contribution of Giles Fletcher — A Canto upon the 
Death of Eliza— is the most poetical in the collection. 
It is a pastoral allegory, conceived in a spirit of grace 
and elegance. The monosyllabic terminations of the 
following lines produce an inharmonious effect, but the 
imagery is very rural. 

Tell me, sad Philomel, that yonder sit'st 
Piping thy songs unto the dancing twig, 

And to the water-fall thy music fit'st, 
So let the friendly prickle never dig 
Thy watchful breast, with woound or small or big, 

Whereon thou leanest ; so let the hissing snake 

Sliding with shrinking silence, never take 
Th unwary foot, while thou perchance hangst half awake. 

The picture of the snake "sliding with shrinking 
silence," is one of the happiest touches of description I 
have ever seen. It would be impossible more vividly to 
represent the sudden rustling of the leaves, and the 
" shrinking " stillness that follows. The idea is partly 
borrowed from Virgil. 

The following verses upon the "velvet-headed violets," 
are equally meritorious in a different manner : 

So let the silver dew but lightly lie, 

Like little watery worlds, within your azure sky. 

This image might have dropped from the pencil of 
Rubens. Every wanderer in our green lanes on a spring 
morning must have seen these "little watery worlds.' ' 

Phineas Fletcher has a poem in the same volume, 

* See verses in Swroive's Joy, by H. Campion, of Emanuel College. 



GILES FLETCHER. 33 

dated from King's College, but very inferior to his 
brother's. 

Chrisfs Victorie was apparently composed before 
Fletcher took his Bachelor's degree. Fuller says, that 
it discovered the piety of a saint and the divinity of a 
doctor ; the piety is more evident than the theological 
skill. The first edition appeared at Cambridge in 
1610, and a second was not required until 1632. It is 
sufficiently clear, therefore, that the poem could not 
have been popular -, and Phineas Fletcher, in some verses 
addressed to his brother upon its publication, entreats 
him not to esteem the censure of "malicious tongues* !" 
That Fletcher was dissatisfied with the reception of his 
work, may be inferred from the circumstance of his re- 
linquishing the cultivation of the Muse, and applying 
himself to the study of school divinity. It is not, how- 
ever, improbable that he occasionally indulged his taste 
in classical composition. In the library of King's College 
is a small MS., presented to it on the 2nd of February, 
1654-5, by S. Th., supposed by Mr. Cole to mean Samuel 
Thorns, with this title: — JEgidii Fletcheri versio Poetica 
Lamentationum Jeremicef. It is dedicated, in a copy of 
hexameter verses, to the amiable and upright Whitgift. 
Ornatissimo doctissimoque viro Do. Doctori Whitgifto ^Egi- 
dius Fletcherus salutem. Whitgift was Master of Trinity 
College from 1570 to June 1577, and the translation 
might, therefore, have been an offering of respect from 
the poet's father ; but as the Archbishop lived till 1603, 
it is possible that it may have emanated from the son. 
Whitgift, like his friend Nevil, was a sincere encou- 
rager of learning and merit -, he supported several poor 

* "Upon my brother, Mr. G. F., his book intituled Christ's Victorie 
and Triumph." 

f Cole's MS. Collections in British Museum. 



34 GILES FLETCHER. 

scholars in his own house, and enabled others to pursue 
their studies at the University. The author of Christ's 
Victorie may have participated in this munificence. 

Though " cross to the grain of his genius/' Fuller tells 
us that Fletcher attained to "good skill" in scholastic 
divinity 5 he had too much capacity and amplitude of 
mind to fail in any pursuit to which he devoted his atten- 
tion. A fellowship at the same time rewarded his la- 
bours, and enabled him to gratify his love of a College- 
life. Fuller does not inform us in what year Fletcher 
received ordination, but it could not have been long after 
the publication of his poem • for in 1612 he published 
at Cambridge, in l2mo., The Young Divine s Apology for 
his continuance in the University , with certain Meditations, 
written by Nathaniel Pownoll, late student of Christ- 
church College, Oxon, and dedicated to the eloquent 
Dr. King, at that time Bishop of London. This book I 
have not been able to obtain, and I am indebted for the 
knowledge of its existence to the MS. collections of the 
indefatigable Cole*. It would certainly tend to illustrate 
the poet's history. 

Of Fletcher's theological acquirements we have no me- 
morials 5 but we are entitled to conclude that he was an 
able and earnest preacher. We learn from Fuller, that 

* Since this paragraph has been written, I have looked into Watts s 
Bibliotheca Britaniiica, vol. 2, and find the following notice : — " Pownoll, 
Nathaniel, late student of Christ Church, Oxford. The Young Divine's 
Apologie for continuing so long in the Universitie, with certain Medi- 
tations, Canterbury, 1612, 12mo." Of course it is impossible to recon- 
cile this account with Cole, whose expressions are, "In 1612, he (G. 
Fletcher) printed at Cambridge, The Young Divine's Apologie for his 
continuance in the University, with certain Meditations, written by Na- 
thaniel Pownoll, late student of Christ's College, Oxon, and dedicated 
to John, Bishop of London, among the uncatalogued books of the old 
University Library." The general accuracy of Watts is well known, 
and I believe the collections of Cole have an equal claim to that distinc- 
tion. In this instance I feel inclined to follow the authority of Cole, for 
it is evident that he had himself seen the book. 




GILES FLETCHER. 35 

when he preached at St. Mary's,, his prayer before the 
sermon usually consisted of one entire allegory, " not 
driven but led on, most proper in all particulars." The 
few specimens we possess of his prose, afford sufficient 
testimony of his learning and eloquence ; but of the pro- 
priety of his allegorical prayers I may be permitted to 
entertain a doubt. 

After 1612 there is a blank in the history of Fletcher, 
until his settlement in the rectory of Alderton, in Suf- 
folk. Fuller says, that he was placed there "by ex- 
change of livings 5" but it seems improbable that he 
would have relinquished any other preferment for a 
situation which is supposed to have hastened the period 
of his death. I think it very likely that he was pre- 
sented to the living by Sir Robert Naunton, whose 
family were the patrons of the church, and had their 
residence in the parish*. Naunton f was Public Orator 
during several years of Fletcher's residence at Cambridge, 
and being himself a member of Trinity, it was natural 
that he should be desirous of forming an acquaintance 
with an individual so much esteemed as the author of 
Chrisfs Victorie must have been by many of his con- 
temporaries. 

Fletcher did not live long to reap the advantage of 
his new preferment 5 the unhealthiness of the situation 
combined with the ignorance of his parishioners to de- 
press his spirits and exhaust his constitution; a lonely 
village in the maritime part of Suffolk, more than two 
hundred years ago, had few consolations to offer to one 
accustomed to the refined manners and elegant occupa- 
tions of an University. We are told by Fuller, in that 

* Magna Britannia, vol. 5, Suffolk, ed. 1730. 

t Elected Public Orator 27th July, 1594; succeeded by F. Nether- 
sole, 10th December, 1611. 

D 2 



36 GILES FLETCHER. 

quaint manner for which he is remarkable, that Fletcher's 
" clownish and low-parted parishioners (having nothing 
but their shoes high about them), valued not their 
pastor according to his worth, which disposed him to 
melancholy and hastened his dissolution*." 

Fletcher's death is supposed to have taken place about 
the year l623f. But Fuller, the only authority upon 
whom we could, in this instance, safely rely, has left a 
blank for the last figure. The disquiet of his later years, 
together with his absence from books, and the derange- 
ment of his papers, caused him to be sometimes unsatis- 
factory with regard to accuracy in dates ; his omission 
cannot now be remedied. I am enabled to state, through 
the kindness of the Rev. Addington Norton, the present 
Rector of Alderton, that no record of Giles Fletcher 

* In the edition of Phineas Fletcher's Piscatory Eclogues, at Edin- 
burgh, 1771, the Editor applies a garbled version of this story to Dr. Giles 
Fletcher, the poet's father. He professes to have derived his informa- 
tion from a Historical Dictionary of England and Wales, 1692. After 
enumerating some particulars, in the life of Dr. Fletcher, the writer adds, 
"in the end of his life he commenced Doctor of Divinity; and, being 
slighted by his clownish parishioners, he fell into a deep melancholy, and 
in a short time died." Mr. Chalmers, in his lives of Giles and Phineas 
Fletcher, refers to the Editor of this edition, " the most of whose judi- 
cious notes, preface, &c." he scrupulously retained, and the one I have 
quoted among the number. So carefully are errors bequeathed from one 
"judicious" editor to another. 

That negligent and tasteless writer, Jacob, committed a still more ridi- 
culous blunder in his Poetical Register, where he says, that Giles Fletcher 
wrote a poem called Christ's Victory, and his other brother, George 
Fletcher, was author of a poem entitled Christ's Victory Over and after 
Death, both of them very much commended, v. 2, p. 57. It was in an 
evil hour that Jacob forsook the more congenial studies that fitted him 
for the composition of the Law Dictionary. For this mistake, how- 
ever, Jacob was indebted to his model Winstanley (Lives of the most 
famous English Poets, 1687, p. 159), whose puerile conceits and affected 
phraseology render his errors less endurable than the matter-of-fact man- 
ner of his imitator. 

The same accomplished critic gives Herbert to Oxford. Winstanley 
was originally a barber, an occupation for which he was probably well 
adapted. 

t Lloyd's State Worthies, vol. 1, p. 552— note, with additions by 
Whitworth. 



GILES FLETCHER. 37 

is preserved,, either in the church or the parish, and the 
register- books only go back to the year 1674. 

Giles Fletcher left a widow, who was subsequently 
married to Mr. Ramsay, the minister of Rougham, a 
small village in Norfolk. From this individual, both 
Fuller's and Lloyd's information respecting the poet was 
derived, and it could have been wished, in this instance, 
that they had allowed their curiosity greater scope. Of 
Mr. Ramsay I know nothing. Cole mentions a person 
of that name who was junior Proctor in 161 6. 

Such is the brief amount of the imperfect intelligence 
I have been able to gather respecting Giles Fletcher. Of 
his manners and conversation, of all that imparts a pecu- 
liar interest to biography, no anecdotes have been pre- 
served. The earlier years of his life were spent in the 
cloistered quiet of a College, and his later days, we have 
reason to fear, were worn out in sorrow and sickness. 
His most lasting memorial exists in his poem, and in it 
we may discover the spirit of the author looking mildly 
and beautifully forth. Into the merits of this composi- 
tion, I propose to enter somewhat at length. 

The life of Phineas was equally unobtrusive with his 
brother's, and more happy in its termination. He was 
admitted from Eton, a scholar of King's College, Cam- 
bridge, in 1600, where he took his degree of B. A. in 
1604, and that of M. A. in 1608: he subsequently 
became a Fellow of the College*. In 1621 he was 
presented to the living of Hilgay, in Norfolk, by Sir 
Henry Willoughby, and probably retained it until his 
death, which is supposed to have happened about 1650, 
in which year he was succeeded by Arthur Tower, 

* Dyer's History of the University of Cambridge, v. 2, p. 195. 



38 GILES FLETCHER. 

admitted by the Committee of plundered ministers *. P. 
Fletcher passed many of his youthful days among his 
father's friends, in Kent. His poems contain frequent 
allusions to the beauty of its scenery, and a desire is 
expressed to pipe his simple song in " some humble 
Kentish dale," in " woody Cranebrook," or on " high 
Brenchley Hill," or by the "rolling Medway." The 
poetry, and the learning of Wyat and Sidney, have en- 
deared Kent to the lovers of literature. The ancestors 
of Waller, of Cowper, and of Hammond, had also their 
seats in this county. 

P. Fletcher's poems, although not published until the 
author was "entering upon his winter," we learn from 
the dedication to Mr. Edward Benlowes, were the " raw 
essays" of his "very unripe years." Of his principal 
composition, The Purple Island, it does not come within 
my plan to give an elaborate account. It was praised 
by Cowley, and Quarles addressed the author as the 
Spenser of the age. Much of the picturesque fancy of 
the Faery Queen certainly plays over the ingenious eccen- 
tricities of The Purple Island. Fletcher possessed, in no 
small degree, the same rich imagination, the same love 
of allegorical extravagances, and the same sweetness and 
occasional majesty of numbers. But of all the qualities 
required to form a poet, Fletcher was especially deficient 
in taste, in that sense of the soul, which, by a kind of 
Ithuriel instinct, examines every image and epithet, and 
rejects them when not accordant with the dignity of the 
art. No man of genius, with the exception of Fletcher, 

* Blomefield's Essay towards a Topographical History of the County 
of Norfolk, 11 vols. 8vo. London, 1805-10, v. 7, p. 373. Mr. Chalmers, 
who refers to this History, takes no notice of its author's error in calling 
P. Fletcher the brother of the Bishop of London, who, we have seen* 
was his uncle. 



GILES FLETCHER. 39 

and Quarles, who meditated a poem on a similar subject, 
would have thought of versifying the structure of the 
human body. Many parts of the Purple Island read 
like one of Sir Astley Cooper's lectures turned into 
metre. Fletcher's medical acquirements must have been 
considerable. But in the midst of all the wearying 
minutiae of physiological details, the reader is sometimes 
refreshed by touches of pure and natural description, 
worthy of Thomson or Burns. How exquisite is this 
picture of the lark : — 

The cheerful lark, mounting from early bed, 
With sweet salutes awakes the drowsy light; 

The earth she left, and up to heaven is fled — 
There chants her Makers praises out of sight. 

Purple Island, c. 9, st. 2. 

I return to the consideration of Chrisfs Victorie. 

In his address To the Reader, Fletcher endeavours to 
conciliate the prejudices entertained by many against 
religious poetry. "What should I speak, he says, of 
Juvencus, Prosper, and the wise Prudentius $ the last of 
which living in Hierom's time, twelve hundred years 
ago, brought forth in his declining age so many and so 
religious poems, straitly charging his soul not to let pass 
so much as one either night or day without some divine 
song : and as sedulous Prudentius, so prudent Sedulius 
was famous in this poetical divinity, the coetan* of 
Bernard, who sang the history of Christ with as much 
devotion in himself as admiration to others, all of which 
were followed by the choicest wits of Christendome — 
Nonnus translating all St. John's Gospel into Greek verse 5 
Sannazar, the late living image and happy imitator of 
Virgil, bestowing ten years upon a song, only to cele- 

* The contemporary. 



40 GILES FLETCHER. 

brate that one day when Christ was borne unto us on 
earth, and we (a happy change) unto God in heaven * - y 
Thrice honoured Bartas, and our (I know no other name 
more glorious than his own) Mr. Edmund Spenser (two 
blessed souls) not thinking ten years enough, laying out 
their whole lives upon this one study." 

The following eloquent passage may be compared with 
Sidney's Defence of Poesie : — 

" To the second sort, therefore, that eliminate poets out 
of their city gates as though they were now grown so 
bad, as they could neither grow worse nor better, though 
it be somewhat hard for those to be the only men 
should want cities, that were the only causers of the 
building of them, and somewhat inhuman to thrust them 
into the woods, who were the first that called men out 
of the woods. 

" I would gladly learn what kind of professions these 
men would be intreated to entertain that so deride and 
disaffect poesy. Would they admit of philosophers, that 
after they have burnt out the whole candle of their life 
in the circular study of sciences, cry out at length, se 
nihil prorsus scire ? Or should musicians be welcome to 
them that Dant sine menie sonum, bring delight with them 
indeed, could they as well express with their instruments 

* I conclude that Fletcher alludes to Sannazar's poem, De Partu 
Virginis, which obtained for the author the title of the Christian Virgil. 
If we pardon the poet's improper selection of a subject, we shall find 
little to blame in the execution. But Fletcher is in error with regard to 
the time employed in the composition of the poem. I believe it occu- 
pied Sannazar twenty years. The MS. was regularly submitted to an 
aged critic, Poderico, to satisfy whom the poet sometimes re-wrote the 
same verse ten times. It has been remarked that the limcz labor, has 
not communicated any appearance of constraint to the work. It may 
be added, that this poem obtained the warm praise of the celebrated 
Pope Leo the Tenth. Its great defect consists in the union of Pagan 
superstition with Christian truths ; had Sannazar more carefully fol- 
lowed his model, Fracastorius, he would not have fallen into this gross 
solecism of taste. 



GILES FLETCHER. 41 

a voice,, as they can a sound. Or would they most ap- 
prove of soldiers, that defend the life of their country- 
men, either by the death of themselves or their enemies ? 

" If philosophers please them, who is it that knows not 
that all the lights of example to clear their precepts are 
borrowed by philosophers from poets ; that without 
Homer's examples, Aristotle would be as blind as Homer. 
If they retain musicians, who ever doubted but that 
poets infused the very soul into the inarticulate sounds 
of music — that without Pindar and Horace, the Lyrics 
had been silenced for ever ? If they must needs enter- 
tain soldiers, who can but confess that poets restore that 
life again to soldiers, which they before lost for the 
safety of their country 5 that without Virgil, ^Eneas had 
never been so much as heard of. How can they, for 
shame, deny common- wealths to them, who were the 
first authors of them 5 how can they deny the blind phi- 
losopher that teaches them, his light ; the empty musi- 
cian that delights them, his soul 5 the dying soldier that 
defends their life, immortality after his own death. Let 
philosophy, let ethics, let all the arts bestow on us this 
gift, that we be not thought dead men whilst we remain 
among the living 5 it is only poetry can make us be 
thought living men when we lie among the dead. And, 
therefore, I think it unequal to thrust them out of our 
cities, that call us out of our graves, to think so hardly 
of them that make us to be so well thought of, to deny 
them to live awhile among us, that make us live for 
ever among our posterity." 

If Fletcher's sermons were composed in this style, 
their loss deserves to be lamented. 

The poem is divided into four cantos, and opens with 
a- stanza so antithetically constructed as, in some mea- 



42 GILES FLETCHER. 

sure, to impair the solemnity of the subject ; but Fletcher 
soon rises into a nobler strain when he thinks of those 

Sacred writings, in whose antique leaves 
The memories of heaven entreasured lie*. 

Milton's Invocation to the Holy Spirit in the Paradise 
Regained is considered by Mr. Dunster " supremely beau- 
tiful;" it does not surpass the solemn and enraptured 
piety of Fletcher : — 

O thou that didst this holy fire infuse, 

And taught this breast, but late the grave of hell, 

Wherein a blind and dead heart lived, to swell 

With better thoughts ;"send down those lights that lend 
Knowledge how to begin, and how to end, 
The love that never was, and never can be pennd. 

In the first canto, Chrisfs Victorie in Heaven, the poet 
traces the redemption of man to the pleadings of Mercy, 
who dwelt in the quiet of that Sabbath where " saintly 
heroes" rest from their labours. When Mercy beheld 
the ruin of that " Golden Building," once illuminated 
with every " star of excellence," she is represented lift- 
ing up "the music of her voice" against the decrees of 
fate. 

The interposition of offended Justice is grandly con- 
ceived : — 

But Justice had no sooner Mercy seen 
Smoothing the wrinkles of her Father s brow, 
But up she starts, and throws herself between ; 
As when a vapour from a moory slough 
Meeting with fresh Eous, that but now 

Opend the world which all in darkness lay, 
Doth heaven s bright face of his rays disarray, 
And sads the smiling orient of the springing day. 

* My quotations are made from the original edition of 1610. The 
orthography only is modernized. 



GILES FLETCHER. 43 

She was a virgin of austere regard, 
Not as the world esteems her, deaf and blind, 
But as the eagle, that hath oft compafd 
Her eye with heavens, so, and more brightly shin'd 
Her lamping sight ; for she the same could wind 
Into the solid heart, and with her ears 
The silence of the thought loud speaking hears, 
And in one hand a pair of even scales she wears. 

No riot of affection revel kept 
Within her breast, but a still apathy 
Possessed all her soul, which softly slept, 
Securely, without tempest ; no sad cry 
Awakes her pity, but wrong d Poverty 
« Sending her eyes to heaven swimming in tears • 
And hideous clamours ever struck her ears, 
Whetting the blazing sword that in her hand she bears, 

The winged lightning is her Mercury, 
And round about her mighty thunders sound ; 
Impatient of himself lies pining by 
Pale Sickness, with his kercher d head up wound, 
And thousand noisome plagues attend her round : 
But if her cloudy brow but once grow foul, 
The flints do melt, the rocks to water roll, 
And airy mountains shake, and frighted shadows howl. 

Famine and bloodless Care, and bloody War, 
Want, and the want of knowledge how to use 
Abundance, Age, and Fear that runs afar 
Before his fellow Grief, that aye pursues 
His winged steps ; for who would not refuse 

Grief's company, a dull and raw-boned spright, 
That lanks the cheeks and pales the freshest sight, 
Unbosoming the cheerful breast of all delight. 

Before this cursed throng goes Ignorance, 
That needs will lead the way it cannot see ; 
And, after all, Death doth his flag advance, 
And in the midst Strife still would roguing be, 
Whose ragged flesh and clothes did well agree * 



44 GILES FLETCHER. 

And round about amazed Horror flies, 
And over all, Shame veils his guilty eyes, 
And underneath Hell's hungry throat still yawning lies. 
Justice is portrayed leaning her bosom upon "two 
stone tables spread before her 5" and the poet, in order 
to impress more deeply the fearful horror of that "scroll" 
on the mind, makes the terror and darkness of the Ap- 
pearance upon Mount Sinai to rush upon our memory, 
when the affrighted children of Israel, like 
A wood of shaking leaves became. — 
The grandeur and dignity of Justice are expressed by 
the hush and stillness of the entire universe, waiting in 
awe for the opening of her lips*. In this silence of hea- 
ven and earth, Justice proceeds to accuse and convict 
man of wickedness and ingratitude. But in this part of 
the poem Fletcher forgot the sublimity of the occasion ; 
he amuses himself with a sort of metaphysical ingenuity, 
as when speaking of Adam's covering of leaves he asks, 

for who ever saw 

A man of leaves a reasonable tree? 

And in some of the verses he sems to have studied that 
epigrammatic brevity and rapidity of interrogation, which 
so delighted his brother's eccentric friend, Quarles; but 
though the author of the Enchiridion might hang a gar- 
land at "the door of those fantastic chambers," every 
true lover of Fletcher's poetry will regret to see him 
lingering within their threshold. 

I must not, however, omit the 28th stanza: — 
What, should I tell how barren Earth is grown 
All for to starve her children? Did'st not thou 
Water with heavenly showers her womb unsown, 

* Milton saw the force of this conception ; at the conclusion of the 
speech of the " Eternal Father" to the Angel Gabriel, 
. . . . . .all heaven 

Admiring stood a space, then into hymns 

Burst forth. Far. Reg., b. 1, v. 170. 



GILES FLETCHER. 45 

And drop down clouds of flowers ? Did'st not thou bow 

Thine easy ear unto the plowman's vow; 

Long might he look, and look, and long in vain, 
Might load his harvest in an empty wain, 

And beat the woods to find the poor oak's hungry grain. 

The effect of the address of Justice is given with great 
sublimity : — 

She ended, and the heavenly Hierarchies 

Burning in zeal, thickly imbranded were : 

Like to an army that alarum cries, 

And every one shakes his y dreaded spear, 

And the Almighty's self, as he would tear 

The earth, and her firm basis quite in sunder, 
Flam'd all in just revenge, and mighty thunder, 

Heaven stole itself from earth by clouds that moisten' d under. 

The awful grandeur of celestial indignation seems to 
lift itself up in the majesty of these lines. The sudden 
preparation of the heavenly warriors, the clangor of arms 
and the uprising of the Deity himself, are splendid 
images, which are known to the reader of Paradise Lost 
not to have escaped the notice of Milton. The pause at 
the beginning of the stanza is a note of solemn pre- 
paration. 

The reappearance of Mercy in the midst of darkness 
and tumult is very picturesque ; her face soon glimmers 
through, and paints the clouds with beauty — 

As when the cheerful sun, elamping wide, 
Glads all the world with his uprising ray, 
And woo's the widow'd earth afresh to pride, 
And paints her bosom with the flow'ry May, 
His silent sister steals him quite away : 

Wrapt in a sable cloud from mortal eyes 
The hasty stars at noon begin to rise, 
And headlong to his early roost the sparrow flies. 



46 GILES FLETCHER. 

But soon as he again deshadow'd is, 

Restoring the blind world his blemish' d sight, 

As though another day were newly his, 

The cozen'd birds busily take their flight, 

And wonder at the shortness of the night. 
So Mercy once again herself displays, 
Out from her sister s cloud, and open lays 
Those sunshine looks whose beams would dim a thousand days. 

The poet then describes the charms of Mercy in verses 
sparkling as the " discoloured plumes" of the graces 
that attend upon her. His " golden phrases flie" in a 
stream of "choicest rhetoric" 

The gentleness of Mercy is contrasted with the haggard 
wretchedness of Repentance : — 

Deeply, alas, impassioned she stood, 
To see a flaming brand toss'd up from hell, 
Boiling her heart in her own lustful blood, 
That oft for torment she would loudly yell ; 
Now she would sighing sit, and now she fell 

Crouching upon the ground in sackloth trust, 
Early and late she pray'd, and fast she must, 
And all her hair hung full of ashes and of dust. 

The reader may remember the picture of Remorse in 
the introduction to the Mirrour for Magistrates \ — 

And first within the porch and jaws of hell, 
Sat deep remorse of conscience, all besprent 
"With tears ; and to herself oft would she tell 
Her wretchedness . 

Fletcher wanted the energy of Sackville's iron pen. 
The impersonations of Dread, Revenge, Misery, and 
Death, placed by that writer in the Porch of Hell, have 
never been surpassed. They stand out in the ghastly 
reality of life, and fill the mind with a solemn visionary 
terror. 



GILES FLETCHER. 47 

When Mercy beheld the wretched form of Repentance 
sitting in "a dark valley " she sent to comfort her one of 
her loveliest attendants, "smiling Eirene*," 

That a garland wears 

Of gilded olive on her fairer hairs. 

There is one exquisite line in the 82nd stanza, in allu- 
sion to the shepherds at the nativity: — 

And them to guide unto their Master's home, 
A star comes dancing up the orient. 

The first canto concludes thus : — 

Bring, bring, ye Graces, all your silver flaskets, 
Painted with every choicest flower that grows, 
That I may soon unflower your fragrant baskets, 
To strew the field with odours where he goes, 
Let whatsoe'er he treads on be a rose. 

So down she* let her eyelids fall, to shine 

Upon the rivers of bright Palestine. 

So beautifully does the poet strew with flowers the 
path of the infant Jesus. 

The second canto, Christ's Victorie on Earth, opens 
with the temptation of our Saviour in the wilderness. 
The fanciful prettiness of Fletcher contrasts upleasingly 
with the calm and dignified narrative of Milton, who, 
without departing from the text of Scripture, where 
it is said, Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the 
wilderness, has invested it with a poetical character. 
Fletcher's picture of our Saviour upon " a grassy hil- 
lock laid," with "woody primroses befreckled," does 
not impress us like Milton's description of Him, who 
the "better to converse with solitude," entered the 

bordering desert wild, 

And with dark shades and rocks environ'd round, 

* Peace. t Mercy. 



48 GILES FLETCHER. 

pursued "his holy meditations." The silence of the 
desert dwells around us ! 

In the representation of our Lord's personal ap- 
pearance Fletcher has manifested a still greater absence 
of judgment ; it is principally formed from the Canticles, 
and in a style of fantastical colouring, peculiarly dis- 
pleasing in a sacred poem. The author might, however, 
have pleaded the prevalent taste of the age in extenua- 
tion. Two nights the Saviour has passed in "the silent 
wilderness," making "the ground his bed, and his moist 
pillow grass," when he discovers afar off an old palmer, 
"come footing slowly," who entreats him to bless his 
lowly roof with his presence. Milton concurred with 
Fletcher in concealing the Prince of Darkness under the 
form of an aged man. This similitude appears to have 
been generally adopted. In La Vita et Passione di Christo, 
published at Venice in 1518, a wooden cut is prefixed to 
the Temptation, in which Satan is represented as an old 
man with a long beard, offering bread to our Lord. In 
Vischer's cuts to the Bible, as noticed by Thyer, the 
tempter is an aged man, and Mr. Dunster has pointed out 
the same circumstance in the painting of the Tempta- 
tion by Salvator Rosa*. 

They wander along together until they arrive at a 
dismal abode, the Cave of Despair — 

E'er long they came near to a baleful bower, 

Much like the mouth of that infernal cave, 

That gaping stood, all comers to devour, 

Dark, doleful, dreary, like a greedy grave 

That still for carrion carcases doth crave. 

The ground no herbs but venomous did bear, 
Nor ragged trees did leave ; but every where 

Dead bones and skulls were cast, and bodies hanged were. 

* See Todd's Works of Milton, v. 4, preliminary observations, p. 18. 



GILES FLETCHER. 49 

Upon the roof the bird of sorrow sat, 
Elonging joyful day with her sad note, 
And thro' the shady air the fluttering bat 
Did wave her leather sails, and blindly float, 
While with her wings the fatal screech-owl smote 
Th' unblessed house ; there, on a craggy stone, 
Celeno hung, and made his direful moan, 
And all about the murdered ghosts did shriek and groan. 

Like cloudy moonshine in some shadowy grove, 
Such was the light in which Despair did dwell ; 
But he himself with night for darkness strove. 
His black uncombed locks dishevell'd fell 
About his face ; thro' which, as brands of hell 
Sunk in his skull, his starry eyes did glow, 
That made him deadly look, their glimpse did show 
Like cockatrices' eyes that sparks of poison throw. 

His clothes were ragged clouts, with thorns pinn'd fast ; 
And as he musing lay, to stcny fright 
A thousand wild Chimeras would him cast : 
As when a fearful dream in midst of night 
Skips to the brain and phansies to the sight 
Some winged fury, straight the hasty foot, 
Eager to fly, cannot pluck up its root : 
The voice dies in the tongue, and mouth gapes without boot. 

Now he would dream that he from Heaven fell, 
And then would snatch the air afraid to fall ; 
And now he thought he sinking was to Hell, 
And- then would grasp the earth, and now his stall 
Him seemed Hell, and then he out would craul : 
And ever as he crept would squint aside, 
Lest him, perhaps, some fury had espied, 
And then, alas ! he should in chains for ever bide ! 

The most material features of this description, remarks 
Mr. Headley*, are taken from Spenser's Fairy Queen, 
lib. i., canto 9, st. 33, 36. This, he adds, is a curious 
* Select Specimens, vol. i. p. 81. 



50 GILES FLETCHER. 

instance of plagiarism, and serves to show us how little 
ceremony the poets of that day laboured under in pil- 
fering from each other. If Giles Fletcher had been 
living, he would probably have thought the critics of 
this day laboured under very little ceremony in accus- 
ing the "poets of that day" of thefts, without sufficiently 
examining their extent. From the following portion of 
the 33rd stanza of the Faerie Queen, Fletcher borrowed, 
it will be seen, two lines : 

Ere long they came where that same wicked wight, 

His dwelling has in a low hollow cave. 

****** 

Dark, doleful, dreary, like a greedy grave, 
That still for carrion carcases doth crave. 

The other plagiarism is found in the dress of despair • 
but the value of the "ragged clouts," and the thorns 
that fastened them, is very small, and forms no mate- 
rial feature of the picture. Spenser partly borrowed 
his own description from Sackville. Fletcher, who was 
a most diligent student of the works of Spenser, had his 
great prototype continually before his eyes, and his 
sweet words floating in his ears. In reading the descrip- 
tion of the Cave of Dispair, I have been reminded of one 
or two passages in the Faerie Queen ; in the second book, 
where Mammon conducts Guyon to see his treasure, we 
find " sad Celeno sitting on a clifte." 

Into this cave "the serpent woo'd him with his 
charms" to enter, but without success. Our Lord is 
next transported to 

The sacred pinnacles that threat 

With their aspiring tops Astrseas starry seat. 

Here was spread the pavilion of Presumption. This 
allegory is in the style of Spenser 5 but Milton, by keep- 



GILES FLETCHER. 51 

ing closer to the scriptural account, has produced a 
sublimer effect. The "specular mount/' from whence 
are beheld all the cities and empires of the East, Niniveh 
and Babylon, and Ecbatana, and the city of the 
Hundred Gates, is a magnificent picture. 

When Presumption has in vain endeavoured to tempt 
the Saviour to throw himself from the mountain, in rage 
and despair, " herself she tumbled head-long to the 
floor," while a choir of angels receives our Lord, and 
bears him to an " airy mountain." Suddenly an en- 
chanted garden springs up in that cold solitude, 

As if the snow had melted into flowers. 

The following stanza might have flowed from the 
"golden mouth" of Milton. 

Not lovely Ida might with this compare, 
Though many streams his banks besilvered, 
Though Zanthus with his golden sands he bare, 
Nor Hybla, though his thyme depastured, 
As fast again with honey blossomed, 

Nor Rhodope's nor Tempe's flowery plain, 

Adonis' garden was to this but vain, 
Though Plato on his beds a flood of praise doth rain. 

The aspect of the garden is described in a line breath- 
ing the glowing beauty of oriental poetry 5 

The garden like a ladie fair was cut, 
That lay as if she slumbered in delight. 

Upon a " hilly bank" was built " the bower of Vain- ' 
Delight," and through this false Eden, the " first de- 
stroyer," led our Saviour. Throughout this canto, 
Fletcher evidently had the pictures of Spenser before 
his eyes 3 the fount of silver, the " plump Lyaeus," and 
the shadows of the " drunken elms," all whisper of the 

e 2 



52 GILES FLETCHER. 

great author of the Faerie Queen. But if Fletcher 
borrowed from Spenser, he in turn has been imitated by 
Milton. We are reminded of the 

Table richly spread, in regal mode, — (Par. Reg.b. 2.) 

which Satan caused to rise up in the desert before 
Jesus, with the attending Naiades bearing "fruits and 
flowers from Amalthea's horn/' and the fair "ladies of 
the Hesperides." Milton does not, indeed, like Fletcher, 
employ them as objects of temptation, an assumption 
not sanctioned by the Evangelists -, but (as Bishop 
Newton has remarked) with greater propriety makes 
them the subject of debate among the wicked spirits 
themselves. The hand of Milton, at least in a sacred 
theme, was always guided by a religious fear and awe. 

The song put into the mouth of the Sorceress by 
Fletcher, is an excellent specimen, the only one extant, 
of his lyrical talents - 3 and probably furnished Herrick 
with a hint for his beautiful little poem — Gather ye 
Rosebuds. 

'The third book is entitled Christ's Triumph over Death, 
and commemorates the crucifixion of our Lord. I have 
already alluded to Fletcher's want of art in the compo- 
sition of his poem, and of order in the narrative. The 
third book is particularly open to this objection : some 
parts are, however, very sublime. The traitor Judas, 
suffering under the horrors of an accusing conscience, is 
worthy the pencil of Michael Angelo. 

When wild Pentheus, grown mad with fear, 
Whole troops of hellish hags about him spies, 
Two bloody suns stalking the dusky sphere, 
And two-fold Thebes runs rolling in his eyes ; 
Or through the scene staring Orestes flies, 



GILES FLETCHER. 53 

With eyes flung back upon his mothers ghost, 
That with infernal serpents all imbost, 
And torches quench' d with blood, doth her stern son accost. 

Yet oft he snatched, and started as he hung — 

So when the senses half enslumbered he, 

The headlong body ready to be flung 

By the deluding fancy from some high 

And craggy rock, recovers greedily, 

And clasps the yielding pillow half asleep, 
And as from heaven it tumbled to the deep, 

Feels a cold sweat through every member creep. 

Euripides might have written these stanzas in the 
season of his solemn inspiration. In the " staring 
Orestes/' we seem to behold the wretched mourner burst 
from the enfolding arms of the weeping Electra, and flee- 
ing in horror from the furies surrounding his couch*. 

The poet describes Joseph of Arimathea at the cross. 
The still grief of the humble and affectionate mourner is 
very affecting. 

But long he stood in his faint arms upholding 
The fairest spoil heaven ever forfeited, 
With such a silent passion grief unfolding, 
That had the sheet but on himself been spread, 
He for the corse might have been buried. 

The departure of Joseph and his companions from 
the sepulchre is in the same spirit. 

Thus spend we tears, that never can be spent 
On him that sorrow now no more shall see. 

* * * * # 

Here bury we 
This heavenly earth ; here let it softly sleep, 
The fairest Shepherd of the fairest sheep. 
So all the body kist, and homewards went to weep. 

In the fourth canto, Christ's Triumph after Death, 

* Tec; oclfjcocrcaTovs xcci IpaxovrcJbus znp&$. — Euripid. Orest. 1. 250. 



54 GILES FLETCHER. 

Fletcher dwells upon the resurrection of our Saviour, 
his ascension to his throne in heaven, and the everlast- 
ing happiness prepared for the good and virtuous in the 
kingdom of Paradise. 

x The following stanza is not, so far as the knowledge 
of the writer of this notice extends, surpassed in the 
whole range of our poetry : every word is full of beauti- 
ful meaning. 

No sorrow now hangs clouding on their brow, 
No bloodless malady empales their face, 
No age drops on their hairs his silver snow, 
No nakedness their bodies doth embase, 
No poverty themselves and theirs disgrace ; 
No fear of death the joy of life devours, 
No unchaste sleep their precious time deflow'rs, 
No loss, no grief, no change, wait on their winged hours. 

And the next is little inferior : the picture of the 
cloud has exceeding delicacy of fancy 5 it is like a sketch 
from the pencil of Claude. 

And if a sullen cloud, as sad as night, 

In which the sun may seem embodied, 

Deprivd of all his dross, we see so white, 

Burning in melting gold his watry head, 

Or round with ivory edges silvered ; 

What lustre superexcellent will He 
Lighten on those that shall his sunshine see, 

In that all glorious court, in which all glories be ? 

The impersonation of the Deity is in the true spirit of 
Hebrew poetry, or rather, perhaps, in the conclusion at 
least, of that beautiful mysticism of which Taylor, in his 
majestic prose, has furnished such splendid examples : — 

In midst of this city celestial, 

Where the eternal Temple should have rose, 

Lightened the Idea Beatifical: 

End and Beginning of each thing that grows, 

Whose self, no end nor yet beginning knows ; 



GILES FLETCHER. 55 

That hath no eyes to see, nor ears to hear, 
Yet sees and hears, and is all eye, all ear, 
That nowhere is containd, and yet is every where. 

Changer of all things, yet immutable, 

Before and after all, the first, anci last, 

That moving all, is yet immoveable, 

Great without quantity, in whose forecast 

Things past are present, things to come are past; 
Swift without motion, to whose open eye 
The hearts of wicked men unbreasted lie, 

At once absent and present to them, far and nigh. 

It is no flaming lustre made of light, 

No sweet concent, or well-tiind harmony, 

Ambrosia, for to feast the appetite, 

Or flowery odour mixt with spicery, 

No soft embrace, or pleasure bodily; 

And yet it is a kind of inward feast, 

A harmony that sounds within the breast, 

An odour, light, embrace^ in which the soul doth rest. 

Although several poems had appeared in Italy, 
founded upon the life and temptation of our Saviour, 
Fletcher claims the merit of having been the first in our 
own country who strung his lyre to so noble a theme. 
In the management of the subject he was naturally in- 
fluenced by the genius of the Faerie Queen, a new edition 
of which had been published in 1596. Spenser died in 
1598-9. At this time Fletcher could scarcely have been 
more than eleven or twelve years old 5 but it is evident 
that his study of Spenser's poem commenced at a very 
early period. In the foregoing remarks it has been some- 
times necessary to bring Fletcher into direct comparison 
with Milton. The Paradise Regained terminates with the 
temptation of our Lord, and cannot, therefore, be said 
to possess that completeness expressed in the title, and 
demanded by the nature of the subject. I am aware that 



56 GILES FLETCHER. 

this opinion is at variance with that of far better and 
abler judges, but I shall endeavour to support it at a 
more convenient season in the life of Milton. 

The peculiar excellencies of the Paradise Regained and 
Chrisfs Victorie, are not difficult to define. In Scrip- 
tural simplicity of conception, and in calm and sustained 
dignity of tone, the palm of superiority must be awarded 
to Milton 5 while in fertility of fancy, earnestness of de- 
votion, and melody of expression, Fletcher may be said 
to stand, at least, upon an equality with him. Chrisfs 
Victorie is rather a series of pictures than a poem ; it is 
deficient in unity, and that concentration of interest 
essential to the success of such a composition. 

The power of the writer comes out in occasional touches 
of great vigour and beauty, indeed, but rendered com- 
paratively ineiFective by their uncertainty. His poem, to 
employ his own magnificent image, does not fling out — 

Such light as from main rocks of diamond, 
Shooting their sparks at Phoebus, would rebound. 

It has not the lustre of one great luminous whole, 
unbroken in the purity of its splendour; its brilliancy is 
dazzling, but fragmentary. 

Mr. Headley calls Chrisfs Victorie a rich and pic- 
turesque poem, though unenlivened by impersonation. The 
author of Select Specimens has received the full meed of 
praise for talent and ingenuity; his accuracy is not 
always unimpeachable. If Presumption, Vain Glory, The 
Sorceress, The Spirit of Evil, fyc, are not impersonations, 
then there are no impersonations in the Faerie Queen. 

I will not protract these remarks any longer; enough 
has been said, I hope, to induce the reader to examine 
the poem for himself, and Chrisfs Victorie only requires 
to be known, that it may be appreciated. 



SYLVESTER. 0/ 

One of the most popular works of the reign of James, 
was Sylvester's translation of The Divine Weeks of Du 
Bart as. The first part was published in 1598, but the 
folio edition appeared in 1621, recommended by eulogis- 
tic verses, by Daniel, Ben Jonson, Hall, and others. 
Jonson afterwards told Drummond, " that he wrote his 
verses before it, ere he understood to confer." But he 
need not have retracted his prais,e on the score of Syl- 
vester's unfaithful translation 5 for the principal merit of 
the work consists in the occasional beauty and originality 
of some of the epithets and images. 

Du Bartas was highly esteemed in England. Sir John 
Mel vil mentions him in his memoirs: — "The Ambassa- 
dours were not well embarked when M. Du Bartas arrived 
here to visit the King's majesty, who, he heard, had him 
in great esteem for his rare poesy, set forth in the French 
tongue." In five or six years the editions of Du Bartas' 
poems exceeded thirty, and yet his name has now passed 
into a proverb in France to express la barbarie et le mauvais 
gout de style. Goethe has truly observed that the just 
appreciation of what is pleasing with reference to the 
country, to the period, and the moral state of a people, 
constitutes taste properly so called, and instances Du 
Bartas, who has received in Germany the appellation of 
King of the French poets. 

Wood says that Sylvester was an accomplished scholar. 
In addition to his versions from Du Bartas and Pibrac, 
whom Montaigne called bon M. de Vibrac, and whose 
Quatrains have been rendered into all languages, he made 
some translations from the Latin of Fracastorius, the 
learned friend of Cardinal Bembo*. 

* Bishop Hall seems to have entertained a very favourable opinion of 
Sylvester's religious poetry. In alluding in his Epistles to his own 



58 SYLVESTER. 

He died at Middleburgh, in Holland, after a life of 
adversity, on the 28th of September, 1618, in the 55th 
year of his age. " By what circumstances he was induced 
to quit his native country," says Mr. Chalmers, " we have 
not discovered." From Cole's MS. collections we learn 
that he was Secretary to the Company of Merchants in 
Middleburgh, in 1617, and it was probably with a view 
of obtaining this situation that he left England*. Poor 
Sylvester had few inducements to remain in his own 
country - 7 his poetical talents only procured him fame 
and flattery, and on this diet, like many of his brethren, 
he found it very difficult to subsist. 

Mr. Dunster, in his considerations on Milton's early 
reading, has very ingeniously, and in many instances 
successfully, endeavoured to prove the obligations of the 
writer of Paradise Lost to the poems of Sylvester. Syl- 
vester undoubtedly enriched our language with some 
picturesque epithets. His characteristics of the sweet- 
numbered Homer ', the clear •• styled Herodotus , and the choice- 
termed Petrarch, are not more gracefully poetic than cri-» 
tically correct. The melody and richness of some of his 
pictures of nature entitled him to the appellation be- 
stowed by his contemporaries, of the "silver-tongued." 
The rose-crowned Zephyrus, and the saffron- coloured bed of 
Aurora, are worthy of Theocritus or Anacreon. Perhaps 
the whole range of our poetry does not present a more 
exquisite descriptive couplet than the following: — 

Arise betimes, while th' opal-coloured morn 
In golden pomp doth May-day's door adorn. 

metrical versions from the Psalms, after praising the "two rare spirits of 
the Sidneys," he observes, " our worthy friend, Mr. J. Sylvester, hath 
showed me how happily he hath sometimes turned from his Bartas to the 
sweet singer of Israel." 

* In Brit. Mus., No. 5880, p. 89. Cole ascertained this circumstance 
from the list of subscribers to Minshicus' Dictionary, in 1617. 



DRUMMOND OF' HAWTHORNDEN. 59 

In 1623 appeared the perfect edition of Drummond's 
Flowers of Sion, or Spiritual Poems. Drummond, of 
Hawthornden, is endeared to our remembrance by his 
loyalty, his learning, and his poetry. The unhappy ter- 
mination of the life of King Charles, to whom he was 
devotedly attached, is thought to have hastened his own 
dissolution. Mr. Gifford has very severely commented 
upon what he calls Drummond's hypocrisy towards his 
friend, Ben Jonson; but it should be recollected, that 
the journal in which the objectionable remarks were en- 
tered, was strictly private, and never intended by the 
author to have seen the light. But if Drummond's 
opinion of Jonson's character was incorrect, Jonson's 
estimation of his friend's poetical talents was equally ill- 
founded. If Drummond's verses "smelled" of the 
"schooles, ' they were generally the schools of nature*. 
Not one of his contemporaries had a heart more suscep- 
tible of her music, or looked out upon her beauty less 
frequently through the "spectacles of books." His pe- 
tition to his Lute appears to have been answered, and she 
often discoursed to him with the sweetness of that pas- 
toral tone when she dwelt with her "green mother, in 
some shady grove f." 

The following specimen is not selected for its superior 
excellence, but on account of its being less frequently 
quoted than others. It breathes a high and moral 
dignity, and is remarkable for the ingenuity with which 
the original metaphor is preserved : — 

Of this fair volume which we World do call, 

If we the sheets and leaves could turn with care 

Of Him who it corrects, and did it frame, 

* Jonson said, that Drummond's verses "smelled too much of the 
schooles." 
t See the sonnet to his Lute. 



60 DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN. 

We clear might read the art and wisdom rare; 
Find out his power which wildest arts doth tame, 
His providence extending every where, 
His justice which proud rebels doth not spare, 
In every page, no period of the same : 
But sillie we, like foolish children, rest 
Well pleased with coloured vellum, leaves of gold ; 
Fair dangling ribbons, leaving what is best, 
Of the great Writers sense ne'er taking hold. 
Or if by chance we stay our minds on aught, 
It is some picture on the margin wrought. 

To some of my readers the pleasant spot where Drum- 
mond passed so many happy and innocent days may be 
known. Hawthornden is situated on the North Esk, 
about half a mile below Roslyn Castle. The house stands 
upon the summit of a precipice overhanging the sides of 
the river, and immediately beneath it are several curious 
caverns. In a small detached cave Drummond is said 
to have composed many of his poems. The Cypress 
Grove is also the title of a very eloquent essay, probably 
written in the same solitude*. 

* Scenes in Scotland, with historical illustrations and biographical 
anecdotes, by J. Leighton. I have seen with pleasure the announce- 
ment of an edition of the poems of Drummond, with a biographical 
memoir by Mr. Peter Cunningham, the son of the poet. His name is, 
at least, an augury of good. 



61 



GEORGE WITHER. 

It has been the fashion among critics and readers of 
poetry to regard Wither only as a fanatical rhymer and 
an intemperate puritan- yet, during the longest and 
brightest period of his life, he was neither. A puritan, 
indeed, in its true signification, he never was. It has 
been well observed, that no man was ever written down 
except by himself. Withers political follies had, during 
his later years, been gradually erasing from the public 
remembrance the sweetness of his early poetry 5 and the 
wit and festivity accompanying the Restoration, tended 
still more to depress his fame. The accomplished 
Rochester and his companions held the popular mind 
in a more silken bondage. From the criticism and taste 
of this season Wither could not hope either for favour 
or justice. The virulence of party feelings obscured the 
judgment even of the antiquary Wood 5 he saw in Locke 
a prating fellow, and in Milton a villanotis incendiary. 
That Wood, in another place, rendered homage to the 
singer of Paradise Lost, only proves that the partisan 
was lost for a while in the admirer of that immortal 
composition. In days when Milton was only a blind 
old man, Wither had no right to complain that his 
poems "were accounted mere scribbles, and the fancies 
of a conceited and confident mind." Heylin had long 
before called him an old puritan satirist 5 and Butler, in 
his Hudibras, made him the drunken companion of the 
voluminous Prynne, and the despicable Vicars. Philips, 
in the Theatrum Poetarum, added his mite of contumely; 
and Dryden, Swift, and Pope, did not forget to follow 
his example. Swift, indeed, while sneering at Wither, 



62 GEORGE WITHER. 

manifested his taste and discernment by including Dry- 
den in the censure. 

In more recent times, critics have not been wanting, 
equally unkind, and equally uninformed, with respect to 
the object of their ridicule. Even the amiable and learned 
Bishop Percy had nothing better to say of the author of 
the Shepherd's Resolution, and other pastorals, indisputably 
among the finest of the kind in our language, than that he 
had " distinguished himself in youth by some pastoral 
pieces that were not inelegant." Ritson, while confessing 
that Withers more juvenile productions .would not dis- 
credit the first writer of the age, could not refrain from 
adding, that by " his long, dull, puritanical rhymes, he ob- 
tained the title of the English Bavius." This appellation 
has never been traced beyond Ritson, ,and may be con- 
sidered the dull invention of his own pen. The prejudice of 
Swift and of Ritson has found inheritors in our own day. 
Mr. D'Israeli, whose ingenuity and talent have met with 
the praise they deserve, was only able to discover that 
"this prosing satirist has, in some pastoral poetry, 
strange to say, opened the right vein**." Yet, this 
"prosing satirist" had written, in the morning of his 
days, poems, with which the juvenile efforts of Dryden, 
of Pope, or of Cowley, can bear no comparison; and 
affording examples of versification singularly correct and 
musical, and breathing the manly fervour of pure and 
idiomatic English. Other names of equal influence 
might be added to the list ; but it is pleasing to 
reflect, that amid all the clamour of petulant ignorance, 
some hands have been held up in the poet's favour. 
Dr. Southey, in one of his latest works, has not been 
ashamed to find in the neglected leaves of Wither, 

* Quarrels of Authors, vol.2, p. 254. 



GEORGE WITHER. 63 

"a felicity of expression, a tenderness of feeling, and 
an elevation of mind*." A word of kindness from 
one who has " built up the tombs" of so many of our 
elder poets in a beautiful criticism, ought to be ade- 
quately esteemed. Sir Egerton Brydges and Mr. Park 
have also exerted themselves in the poet's cause, and 
to their many and careful labours the writer of the 
following memoir has already acknowledged his obli- 
gations. 

George Wither was born at Bentworth, near Alton, in 
Hampshire, and, according to Anthony Wood and 
Aubrey, on the 11th of June, 1588 ; but Dalrymple 
and Park, upon the authority of a copy of Abuses Stript 
and Whipt, in the possession of Mr. Herbert, have fixed 
the poet's birth in 1590. The register of baptisms at 
Bentworth affords no assistance, the earliest entry begin- 
ning in 1603. But a conclusive evidence in support of 
Wood and Aubrey is furnished by Wither himself, in a 
pamphlet entitled Salt upon Salt, where he says, in 
August, 1658, — 

When I began to know the world and men, 
I made records of what I found it then, 
Continuing ever since to take good heed 
How they stood still, went back, or did proceed ; 
Till of my scale of time ascending heaven, 
Tlie round I stand in maketh ten times seven. 

The "ten times seven" will carry his birth back to 1588. 

George Wither, the poet's father, was descended from 
the Withers of Manydowne, near Wotton St. Lawrence, 
in the county of Hants, where one of the family was 
recently residing. 

* Memoir of Taylor, in Lives of Uneducated Poets. 



64 GEORGE WITHER. 

He had three sons,, George, James, and Anthony. The 
poet's mother was Ann Serle *. 

George received his early education in the neighbour- 
ing village of Colemore, under John Greaves, a cele- 
brated schoolmaster "of those parts," whose merits the 
young poet honoured in an epigram annexed to Abuses 
Stript and Whipt, and regretted his inability to do more 
than repay, 

In willingness, in thanks, and gentle words, 

the affectionate interest and care of the tutor. 

Wither' s father appears to have been in opulent cir- 
cumstances, for many years after the poet spoke of the 
easy luxury of his youthful days : — 

When daily I on change of dainties fed, 

Lodged, night by night, upon an easy bed, 

In lordly chambers, and had wherewithall, 

Attendants forwarder than I to call, 

Who brought me all things needful; when at hand, 

Hounds, hawks, and horses were at my command. 

Then choose I did my walks on hills or vallies, 

In groves near springs, or in sweet garden allies : 

Reposing either in a natural shade, 

Or in neat harbours, which by art were made, 

Where I might have required, without denial, 

The lute, the organ, or deep sounding vial," 

To cheer my spirits ; with what else beside 

Was pleasant, when my friends did thus provide, 

Without my cost or labour. 

Britain's Remembrancer, canto 3. 

* An account of the pedigree of Wither's ancestors has been given by 
Sir Egerton Brydges, in the first volume of the Restituta, from the visita- 
tion book of Hampshire, in 1634. The family, which originally came 
from Lancashire, had been seated in Hampshire many years before the 
birth of the poet. In 1810, the representative of another branch of the 
family, Wither Bramstone, Esq., was residing in the adjoining parish 
of Deane. 



GEORGE WITHER. 65 

In the spring of 1603, Wither was sent to Magdalen 
College, Oxford*, and entered under John Warner, 
afterwards Bishop of Rochester, a sound logician, and a 
good and ripe scholar. Wither confessed in later times, 
that if he had not reaped all the advantages of a col- 
legiate education, it was not because he had been " ill 
entered:" he left the school of Greaves, no stranger to 
" Lilly's Latin, or Camden's Greek." His poetical talents 
were speedily developed. While at Magdalen College he 
is thought to have composed the graceful Love- Sonnet, 
printed in Ritson's Ancient English Songs f. Mr. Park 
has questioned the genuineness of this poem 5 but Ritson 
attributed it to Wither, upon the authority of Hearne, 

* Not 1604, as Wood, Park, Ritson, &c, assert. Wither's own words 
are, that he was sent to Oxford' 

The very spring before I grew so old, 
That I had almost thrice five winters told. 

Abuses Whipt and Stript. 
Of James Wither, son of John Wither, of Manydown, who died in 
1627, at the age of 23, a Fellow of New College, Oxford, a memorial is 
placed within the cloisters, near the chapel. 

t P. 205. The sonnet is quoted by Ritson, from a Miscellany, in 12mo., 
entitled A Description of Love, with certain Epigrams, Elegies, and Son- 
nets ; and also Master Johnsons Answere to Master Withers. Of this 
book, which obtained great popularity, an 8th edition appeared in 1636. 
In Warton's Companion to the Oxford Guide, this song is improperly 
ascribed to Taylor, the Water-poet. Ritson, "to cut the matter short," 
has endeavoured to ascertain the year in which it was written. " The 
author," he says, " was admitted of Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1604, 
and having pursued his studies for three years, left the University for 
the Inns of Chancery. Now it will be evident that this song was written 
at College. If, therefore, we allow the first year for his falling in love, 
the second, for the favourable return he experienced, and the third, for 
the loss of his mistress, this song must have been written in 1606, when 
the author was eighteen years of age." 

I am sorry to be obliged to demolish a fabric so ingeniously constructed, 
but we shall presently find Wither in London in his eighteenth year, long 
after he had left Oxford. So much for Ritson's plan of cutting a matter 
short. By treading implicitly in the foot-prints of W ood, Ritson has fallen 
into another error, in saying that John Taylor was, on all occasions, 
the professed antagonist of Wither. The Water-poet, on the contrary, 
was the respectful admirer of Wither during the brighter period of his 
life, and only ceased to be so when Wither forsook the principles and 
the creed of his earlier days. 



66 GEORGE WITHER. 

of whom Dr. Bliss has remarked, with great truth, that 
he rarely affirms any thing without sufficient reason. 
That the song was written at College, is proved by the 
allusions to the academical costume, and the summer 
excursions to Medley, " a large house between Godstow 
and Oxford, very pleasantly situated just by the river," 
and rendered still more attractive to the poetic mind by 
the visits of the fair and unfortunate Rosamond. This 
house has long been removed. 

Anthony Wood insinuates that our poet acquired a 
little learning at the University, " with much ado." 

Wither, who rarely concealed either his errors or his 
virtues, afterwards confessed, that upon his arrival at 
"the English Athens," he "fell to wonder jng at each 
thing he saw," and passed a month in noting the palaces, 
temples, cloisters, walks, and groves. The "Bell of 
Osney," and "old Sir Harry Bath," and the forest of 
Shotover were not forgotten. In the midst of those agree- 
able occupations, he never " drank at Aristotle's well." 
But at length he says, the kind affection of his tutor, 

From childish humours gently called me in, 
And with his grave instructions did begin 
To teach ; and by his good persuasion sought 
To bring me to a love of what he taught. 

Warner neither encouraged idleness in himself, nor 
permitted it in others. 

The young poet found it easier to "practise at the 
tennis-ball" than to comprehend the mysteries of logic 5 
his understanding was confused by the rules of " old 
Scotus, Seton, and new Keckerman." This state of 
stupor continued a considerable time, and it w T as not 
until Cynthia "had six times lost her borrowed light," 
that being ashamed to find himself outstripped by every 



GEORGE WITHER. 67 

little ignorant " dandiprat," he devoted his mind in 
earnest to master the difficulty. A little determination 
will accomplish great things. Wither soon felt his " dull 
intelligence" begin to open, and was astonished to dis- 
cover that he 

perceived more 

In half an hour, than half a year before. 

These pleasing occupations were soon to be interrupted. 

He had been at Oxford about two years, and was 
beginning to love a College-life, when he was suddenly 
removed by his friends, and taken home " to hold the 
plough." He alludes to this unwelcome change in Abuses 
Whipt and Stript, where he speaks of returning in dis- 
content to "thebeechy shadows of Bentworth*." But 
Wither held the plough with no willing hand, and much 
of his time seems to have been occupied in wandering 
about the pleasant country around Alton, whose neigh- 
bourhood has been invested with a peculiar interest by 
the reputed partiality of Spenser, who, in this " delicate 
sweet air" is said to have "enjoyed his Muse and writ 
good part of his verses f." In the sequestered grassy 
lanes of Bentworth, the young poet might dream away 
the summer-hours in the serenest meditations. But 
Wither' s sojourn at home was imbittered by the officious 
interference of friends, who continually urged his rela- 
tions to apprentice him to " some mechanick trade." To 

* But now ensues the worst— I setting foot 
And thus digesting learning's bitter root, 
Ready to taste the fruit ; then when I thought 
I should a calling in that place have sought, 
I found that I, for other ends ordain'd, 
AVas from that course perforce to be constrain'd. 

Abuses Whipt and Stript, p. 5. 

t According to Aubrey, who received the information from his friend, 
Mr. Samuel Woodford, who lived near Alton. 

f2 



68 GEORGE WITHER. 

escape from these new-found crocodiles, as he calls 
them, he came to London, resolved to try his fortune at 
Court. Wither was now only eighteen years old, a fact 
I have ascertained from the 22nd emblem of the 1st 
book, in which he says — 

My hopeful friends, at thrice five years and three, 
Without a guide (into the world alone) 
To seek my fortune did adventure me. 
And many hazards I alighted on — 

The emblem, of which these verses form a partial 
illustration, represents the choice of Hercules, and tells 
the story with considerable force. In the middle of the 
picture stands the bold ardent youth ; on the right 
hand is seated Wisdom, with flowing beard and open 
book 5 and on the left is Vice, with one hand lifting the 
" painted vizard" from her face, so as to give a glimpse 
of the deformity of her features, and by her side lie a 
skull and cross-bones, the insignia of Death. 

Soon after his arrival in the metropolis, Wither en- 
tered himself of Lincoln's Inn, and appears to have 
formed an early intimacy with William Browne, the pas- 
toral poet, who belonged to the Inner Temple. But his 
geny, says Anthony Wood, hanging after things more 
smooth and delightful, he did at length make himself 
known to the world (after he had taken several rambles 
therein) by certain specimens of poetry, which being dis- 
persed in several hands, he became shortly after a public 
author. Of these several rambles we have no account, 
but it is probable that the young poet visited Ireland 
and Scotland 5 for in the list of his works we find, Iter 
Hibernicum, or, an Irish Voyage*, and Iter Boreale, or, a 

* In Wither's Catalogue of his books is A Discourse concerning the 
Plantations of Ulster, in Ireland. Prose. Wood says this was printed, 
but it has not reached us. 



GEORGE WITHER. 69 

Northern Journey. The MSS. of these poems were lost, 
we are told by Wither, when his house was plundered, 
or by some other accident, and Wood was in error, 
therefore, in saying that they had been recovered, and 
"printed more than once." 

Among Wither' s lost works is a prose tract, entitled, 
" Pursuit of Happiness, being a character of the author's 
extravagances and passions in his youth." This would 
be a treasure to the poet's biographer." 

The untimely death of Prince Henry, in 1612, was 
\he theme of universal grief and lamentation. " The world 
here," wrote Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton, * ( is much 
dismayed at the loss of so hopeful and likely a prince 
all of a sudden." Poetic garlands, without number, were 
showered upon his hearse. Bishop Hall lamented the 
" unseasonable death of his sweet master, Prince Henrie 5" 
and Drayton, W. Browne, Chapman, Donne, Sylves^r, 
Hey wood, Webster, Drummond of Hawthornden, Wither, 
and many more, added their tribute to the general 
elegy. The offering of Wither was one of the most 
interesting, both in tone and expression, and breathes an 
affectionate sincerity, rarely found in poems of this 
description. When Prince Henry, during the King's 
visit to Oxford, in 1605, "sat in the midst of the upper 
table," in the Hall of Magdalen College, Wither, then 
an undergraduate, formed one of the throng ranged 
along the sides. 

The 32nd elegy offers a favourable specimen. The 
body of the Prince, it should be remembered, was em- 
balmed, and carried in the funeral procession : — 

Then as he past along you might espy 

How the grieved vulgar, that shed many a tear, 

Cast after an unwilling parting eye, 



70 GEORGE WITHER. 

As loth to lose the sight they held so dear. 
"When they had lost the figure of his face, 
Then they beheld his robes, his chariot then, 
Which being hid, their look aim'd at the place, 
Still longing to behold him once again ; 
But when he was quite past, and they could find 
No object to employ their sight upon, 
Sorrow became more busy with the mind, 
And drew an army of sad passions on, 
Which made them so particularly moan, 
Each among thousands seemed as if alone. 

The grandeur of the last line has been often imitated.. 
All the elegies, however, are not equally excellent. The 
34th begins, Black was Whitehall, — a noble specimen of 
the bathos *. 

In the following year, Wither's Muse awoke a livelier 
measure, to celebrate the union of the Princess Elizabeth 
with the Count Palatine of the Rhine. Mr. Dalrymple 
says, that no edition of the Epithalamia is mentioned 
earlier than 1622; but he might have found them in 
The Works of Master George Wither, published by Thomas 
Walkley, in 1620. According to Dr. Bliss, they were 
first printed in 4to., in 1613. At the commencement of 
the poems, Wither describes himself to have been " lately 
grieved more than can be expressed," and determining 
to " shut up his Muse in dark obscurity," he 

^- In content, the better to repose, 

A lonely grove upon a mountain chose, 

East from Caer-winn, midway 'twixt Arle and Dis, 

True springs where Britain's true Arcadia is. 

But before he departed, the winter which, in a marginal 
note we are informed, was exceedingly tempestuous, had 

* When the women in Scotland, says an anonymous writer, quoted in 
Nichols's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, v. iii., p. 353, do lament the death 
of their clearest children, to comfort them it is ordinarily said, and is 
passed into a proverb, Did not good Prince Henry die? 



GEORGE WITHER. 71 

set in. His Muse ingeniously accounts to him for the 
recent floods, by the gathering together of the tributary 
streams of the Thames to honour the approaching " match 
betwixt great Thame and Rhine." For this hyperbole 
Wither might have pleaded the example of Bishop Hall, 
who had traced the unseasonable winter to the death of 
Prince Henry *. Our poet returned to London in the 
beginning of spring : — 

My lonely life I suddenly forsook, 

And to the Court again my journey took. 
***** 

The winter 'gan to change in every thing, 

And seemed to borrow mildness of the spring, 

The violet and primrose fresh did grow, 

And, as in April, trimrnd both copse and rowf . 

Wither composed the Epiihalamia with a twofold object : 
to honour the Princess, and to convince the public that 
he " had as well an affable look to encourage honesty, as 
a stern frown to cast on villany. If the times would 
suffer me," he adds, " I could be as pleasing others, and, 
perhaps, ere long I will make you amends for my former 
rigour." The song of congratulation was worthy of him- 
self and of the occasion 5 and the manner in which 
he recommends his rustic melody is very graceful and 
tender : — 

But if amongst Apollo's lays you can 
Be pleased to lend a gentle ear to Pan, 
Or think your country shepherd loves as dear 
As if he were a courtier or a peer ; 

* The winter weeps and mourns indeed. — LacryincB Lacrymarum. 
t Wither was in no favour at Court: — ■ 

I myself, though meanest stated, 

And in Court now almost hated, 

Will knit up my scourge, and venture 

In the midst of them to enter. — Epithalamia. 



rZ GEORGE WITHER. 

v Then I, that else must to my cell of pain, 
Will joyful turn unto my flock again. 

The sound of Pan's shepherd- reed was in some danger 
of being drowned in the general rejoicing and pomp 
of these sumptuous nuptials 5 upon the celebration of 
which, according to Rapin, the enormous sum of 93,278/. 
was expended. Neither should the Water-poet's song 
be forgotten 5 In the description of the " sea-fights" 
and fire-works upon the Thames, Taylor was quite at 
home. 

It has been supposed, upon the authority of a passage 
in the Warning Piece to London, that tbe first edition of 
Abuses Whipt and Stript appeared in 1611 ; but I am 
inclined to think that the expression of Wither — 

In sixteen hundred ten and one, 
I notice took of public crimes, 

refers to an earlier publication, from the ill- consequences 
of which he was extricated by the kind intervention of 
the young Princess Elizabeth. And this opinion seems 
to be strengthened by the dedication of his version of 
the Psalms, in 1632, to that unfortunate lady. " Among 
those who are in affection of your Majesty's loyal servants 
I am one ; and in my own country great multitudes have 
took notice of a special obligation which I had, above 
many others, to honour and serve you. For I do hereby 
most humbly and thankfully acknowledge, that when my 
over-forward Muse first fluttered out of her nest, she 
obtained the preservation of her endangered liberty by 
your gracious favour -, and, perhaps, escaped also thereby 
that 'pinioninge' which would have marred her flying 
forth for ever after." 

The Princess had early evinced her poetical skill in a 
poem addressed to her guardian, Lord Harington, and 



GEORGE WITHER. 73 

may, therefore, be supposed to have interested herself 
with peculiar pleasure in the cause of an endangered 
poet. When Wither boasted, in the Shepherd's Hunting, 
that 

The noblest Nymph of Thame 

had graced his verse unto his " greater fame," he alluded 
to the same accomplished individual. 

Satire, specifically so called, observes Warton in his 
History of English Poetry, did not commence in England 
till the latter end of the reign of Elizabeth. Eclogues 
and Allegories had hitherto been made the vehicles of 
satire, but the first professed English satirist was Bishop 
Hall, whose Toothless Satires were printed in 1597. 
Warton, in this instance, is not implicitly to be followed. 
Chaucer and Skelton, in particular, had long before 
furnished specimens of unconcealed and bitter satire 5 
and Gascoigne's Steele Glas, expressly entitled a satire, 
was published in 1587, ten years before the first appear- 
ance of Hall's poems. The eloquent Bishop, indeed, 
considered himself the first adventurer in this path of 
poetry*, but Mr. Beloe, in the Anecdotes of Literature, 
and Mr. Collier, in the Poetical Decameron f, have both 
ingeniously attempted, and with apparent success, to 
establish the prior claims of Thomas Lodge and Dr. 
Donne. But if Hall was second in point of time, he 
was first in merit. So much elegance of thought, en- 

* I first adventure, follow me who list, 
And be the second English satyrist. — Prolog, to Sat, 

t Poetical Decameron, vol. i., p. 155. Mr. Collier founds the claim of 
Donne to this honour upon the authority of a MS. copy of his Satires 
among the Harl. MSS., No. 5110, and bearing date 1593, and en- 
deavours to show that a limited number of copies for private circulation 
were very early printed. Upon every subject connected with the history 
of our poetry, Mr. Collier is to be listened to with the respect due to 
his inquiring industry and acuteness of judgment. 



74 GEORGE WITHER. 

forced by such vigour of delineation, and felicity of 
style, had not been often seen in our poetry. 

Hall was followed by Marston, with his " rough-hew'd 
rhymes/' his bitter personalities, his life-like sketches, 
and the choice pictorial epithets that won the youthful 
ear of Milton. Both attacked the vices and follies of 
the times — Hall, with the scholastic severity of one 
acquainted with vice only by contemplating its effects in 
others ; and Marston, with a vigour and warmth of 
colouring betokening a familiarity with the scenes he 
described. His invectives against crime are frequently 
only incentives to its commission, unintentionally, we 
are told, on the author's part, and yet not less dangerous 
on that account. Warton has excellently remarked, 
that when Vice is led forth to be sacrificed at the shrine 
of Virtue, the victim should not be too richly drest. 
Marston, unfortunately, often bound the garland upon 
her head. Compared with Bishop Hall, his rhythm is 
more copious and disengaged, and, although not so care- 
fully modulated, flows with a more sustained energy 
and power. 

The popularity of Hall and Marston gave rise to an 
"innumerable crop" of Satirists. The dedication of 
Abuses Whipt and Stript to himself, was probably sug- 
gested to Wither by Marston, who had inscribed the 
Scourge of Villainie to " his most esteemed and beloved 
self 5" and the idea of the title might have been bor- 
rowed from the same writer*. 

Wither wrote his Satire under the excitement of dis- 

* Marston, in the Scourge of Villainie, says, " I'll strip you nak't and 
whip you with my rimes ;" and Mr. Park has pointed out a puritanical 
pamphlet published in 1569, called, The Children of the Chapel Stript 
and Whipt. This seems to have been a favourite phrase. — See also 
Warton's Hist, of Pout., vol. iii. p. 288. 



GEORGE WITHER. 75 

appointed expectations. In the dedication, he alludes 
to the imagination of some preferment, and confesses, 
that being unable to procure any employment, he had 
applied himself to watching the vices of the times. 

He refers, mysteriously, to the destruction of his 
prospects, in the Shepherd's Hunting, where, after detail- 
ing, in an allegory, the ravages made by the wild beasts 
of the Metropolis among the flocks of innocent shep- 
herds, he says, 

Yea, I among the rest did fare as bad, 

Or rather worse, for the best ewes * I had, 

Whose breed should be my means of hope and gain, 

Were in one evening by these monsters slain, 

Which mischief I resolved to repay, 

Or else grow desperate, and hunt all away. 

For in a fury (such as you shall see 

Huntsmen in missing of their sport will be) 

I vow'd a monster should not lurk about, 

In all this province but I'd find him out. 

And thereupon, without respect or care, 

How, lame, how full, or how unfit they were, 

In haste unkennell'd all my roaring crew, 

Who were as mad as if my mind they knew. 

This roaring crew consisted of his Satyrs, which 
Wither followed in full cry through 

Hamlets, tithings, parishes, and boroughs, 
Through kitchen, parlour, hall and chamber too — 
And as they pass'd the City, and the Court, 
My Prince lookd out and deign'd to view the sport. 

Far, however, from lamenting his ill-success, Wither 
rejoiced that God, " by dashing his hopes," had called 
him to himself again. Considered as the work of a 
young man, who came to the task with no preparation 

* Meaning his hopes. 



76 GEORGE WITHER. 

of books or study, Abuses Whipt and Stript merits our 
approbation *. In the Address to the Reader, we are 
cautioned not to look " for Spenser's or Daniel's well- 
composed numbers, or the deep conceits of now flourish- 
ing Jonson." He purposely avoided speaking in " dark 
parables," and rejected as useless, all "poetical addi- 
tions and feigned allegories." 

Warton says that Wither' s poem is characterized by 
a vein of severity unseasoned by wit -, but I have yet to 
learn that wit, in the common acceptation of the word, 
is necessary to the formation of a satirist. We find 
little of it in Juvenal, and still less in Dr. Johnson's 
noble imitation of his manner. The vices and crimes of 
men are not to be cured or restrained by laughing at 
them. The light arrows of mirthful irony and humour 
make no impression on their coat of steel ; it is only by 
the "mailed and resolved hand" of virtuous indignation 
that their coverings can be rent away, and their natural 
deformity and loathsomeness exposed. If Wither had 
not the hand to do this, he had at least the desire, and 
he came up to Milton's idea of the duties of a satirist, 
by striking high, and adventuring dangerously " at the 
most eminent vices among the greatest persons 5" and 
he afforded an example, in his own person, that if a 
satire was not always " born out of a Tragedy," it fre- 
quently terminated in one f. 

Appended to the Satire are several epigrams addressed 
to various individuals, and among others to Lord 
Ridgeway, whom Wither commemorates as the first 
that " graced and gratified his Muse." Henry, Earl of 

* When he this book composed, it was more 

Than he had read in twice twelve months before. 

Introduct. to Abuses, &c. 
t Apology for Smectymnus. 



GEORGE WITHER. 77 

Southampton*, the patron of Shakspeare, and one of 
the founders of Virginia ; William, Earl of Pembroke, of 
whose almost universal generosity to poets I shall have 
another opportunity of speaking -, and Lady Mary 
Wroth, the niece of Sir Philip Sydney, and the au- 
thoress of a long and tedious romance, in imitation of 
the Arcadia, entitled Urania f. 

At the end of Abuses, &c, is a poem called the Scourge, 
in which Wither appears to have gratified his malignity 
at the expense of his honesty. Wood, who had never 
seen the Scourge, speaks of it as a separate publication, 
but it forms a postscript to the edition of Abuses Whipt 
and Stript, in 1615, and from the terms in which the 
Author refers to it, may be supposed to have occupied 
the same place in the earlier edition. The following 
attack upon an upright and honourable man cannot be 
justified. 

And prithee tell the B. Chancellor, 
That thou art sent to be his counsellor, 
And tell him if he mean not to be stript, 
And like a school-boy once again be whipt, 
His worship would not so bad minded be, 
As to pervert judgment for a scurvy fee. 

The individual here alluded to must have been Lord 
Ellesmere, a man whose excellence of heart and purity 
of mind obtained the suffrages of his contemporaries. 

* Braithwaite, in the Scholar's Medley, calls him " learning's best 
favourite." 

t Shenstone was thankful that his name presented no facilities to the 
punster. Lady Wroth could not boast of the same immunity. In her 
case, however, the ingenuity of flattery alone was evinced. Davies, of 
Hereford, in his Twenty-nine Epigrams, addressed to contemporary 
poets, has one inscribed to the " ail-worthily commended Lady Mary 
Wroth," whose name, he says, in the abstract, is not Wroth, but Worth, 
Ben Jonson inscribed two of his Epigrams, and a Sonnet in the Under- 
woods to this Lady, and he also dedicated to her his exquisite comedy of 
the Alchemist. 



78 GEORGE WITHER. 

He died in 1616,, and James received the seals with his 
own hand from the expiring Chancellor. Hacket says 
of him, in the Life of Archbishop Williams, that he never 
did, spoke, or thought any thing undeserving of praise. 
It is a singular fact, that Lord Bacon and Bishop 
Williams, who both partook of his generous patronage, 
should have succeeded him in his high office. The poet 
Donne, who, on his return from Spain, had become 
Secretary to Lord Ellesmere, was deprived of the benefit 
of the connexion by his secret marriage with the 
daughter of Sir George More *. 

The Satire produced, it is to be feared, no salutary 
effects upon the public morals, but it sent the imprudent 
author to the Marshalsea prison f. Of the sufferings he 
endured there, Wither has left an affecting account in 
the Schollers Purgatory. " All my apparent good inten- 
tions," he says, " were so mistaken by the aggravation 
of some ill affected towards my endeavours, that I was 
shut up from the society of mankind, and, as one un- 
worthy the compassion vouchsafed to thieves and mur- 
derers, was neither permitted the use of my pen, the 
access or sight of acquaintance, the allowances usually 
afforded other close prisoners, nor means to send for 
necessaries befitting my present condition : by which 
means I was for many days compelled to feed on nothing 
but the coarsest bread, and sometimes locked up four- 

* Ben Jonson, who, as Mr. Gifford has observed, knew Lord Elles- 
mere, and judged him well, has in more than one place, recorded his 
worth ; he describes him, in the Discoveries, as " a grave and great 
orator, best when he was provoked;" and he also eulogized the purity 
of the Chancellor's judgments in one of the most beautiful of his epi- 
grams, and in the Underwoods, made him the theme of his praise. 
Taylor says, in the Aqua-Mus<z, 1644, p. 7, of Wither, 

'Tis known that once, within these thirty years, 

Thou wert in jail for slandering some peers. 
One of these must have been Ellesmere. 
t Not, as Aubrey believed, to Newgate. 



GEORGE WITHER. 79 

and -twenty hours together, without so much as a drop 
of water to cool my tongue : and being at the same 
time in one of the greatest extremities of sickness that 
was ever inflicted upon my body, the help both of phy- 
sician and apothecary was uncivilly denied me. So that 
if God had not, by resolutions of the mind which he 
infused into me, extraordinarily enabled me to wrestle 
with those and such other afflictions as I was then 
exercised with all, I had been dangerously and lastingly 
overcome. But of these usages," he adds, " I complain 
not 3 He that made me, made me strong enough to 
despise them." 

Withers account of his sufferings may have been 
somewhat exaggerated 5 for Taylor, the Water-poet, who 
knew him well, informs us that multitudes of people 
came to him ce in pilgrimage during his imprisonment," 
and provided him with every necessary. But though 
multitudes might have made a pilgrimage to the Mar- 
shalsea, it does not follow that either they or the 
provisions were admitted to the prisoner. Indeed the 
banishment of his friends, and the "exclusion from the 
Sacred Rites," were the constant subjects of the poet's 
lamentation. 

It was not in the heart of Wither to be idle, or to 
yield to the depressing influence of his fortune -, he 
seemed to experience, in its truest meaning, the senti- 
ment afterwards expressed by the accomplished Lovelace, 
when confined in the Gatehouse at Westminster 5 

Stone walls do not a prison make, 

Nor iron bars a cage ; 
Minds innocent and quiet, take 

That for a hermitage. 

During his imprisonment he composed the Shepherd's 



80 GEORGE WITHER. 

Hunting, a pastoral poem of great beauty, and containing 
one passage in particular, the celebrated address to poesy, 
which will not be forgotten while the love of poetry shall 
endure amongst us. It is dedicated to those " virtuous 
friends" who visited him in the Marshalsea, and pro- 
fesses to be a small return for their many acts of kind- 
ness. The poem, he informs us, was no part of his 
study, but merely a recreation during his solitary hours, 
neither in his " conceit fitting, nor by him intended to 
be made common." Some of his friends, however, 
copied the MS. in his absence, and prepared it for the 
press before his return. Wither, who seems to have 
entertained a very unaccountable objection to the publi- 
cation of the poem, was no longer able to resist the 
importunity of his friends. The inappropriate title of 
The Shepherd's Hunting, was given to the work by the 
stationer. 

The following extract from A Prisoner s Lay, is a very 
beautiful and ingenious adaptation of Scripture to his 
own peculiar case*. It was, indeed, good for him to 
suffer, if he could thus gather consolation in the midst of 
sorrow, and, untroubled by the noises of the world with- 
out, surrender up his mind to holy meditations : — 

First think, my soul, if I have foes 
That take a pleasure in my care, 

* Wither sweetly alludes to the origin of this hymn : 

He that first taught his music such a strain, 
Was that sweet shepherd, who, until a king, 
Kept sheep upon the honey-milky plain 
That is enricht by Jordan's watering : 
He in his troubles eased the body's pains, 
By measures rais'd to the soul's ravishing : 

And his sweet numbers only most divine, 

Gave the first being to this song of mine. 

Shepherd's Hwiting, eclogue i. 



GEORGE WITHER. 81 

And to procure these outward woes 
Have thus enwrapt me unaware ; 

Thou should' st by much more careful be, 

Since greater foes lay wait for thee. 

By my late hopes that now are crost, 

Consider those that firmer be, 

And make the freedom I have lost 

A means that may remember thee. 
Had Christ not thy Redeemer been, 
What horrid state had'st thou been in ! 

Or when through me thou seest a man 
Condemn'd unto a mortal death, 
How sad he looks, how pale, how wan, 
Drawing, with fear, his panting breath : 

Think if in that such grief thou see, 

How sad will " Go ye cursed" be ! 

These iron chains, these bolts of steel, 
Which often poor offenders grind; 
The wants and cares which they do feel 
May bring some greater things to mind. 

For by their grief thou shalt do well 

To think upon the pains of Hell. 

Again, when he that feared to die 

(Past hope) doth see his pardon brought, 

Read but the joy that's in his eye, 

And then convey it to thy thought : 

Then think between thy heart and thee, 
How glad will "Come ye blessed" be ! 

The Shepherd's Hunting is divided into five eclogues 3 
the fourth is dedicated to " his truly beloved, loving friend, 
Mr. William Browne/' and forms the most poetical part 
of the composition. It is written in that playful lyric 
measure, in which no writer, not even Milton in his 
L Allegro, has surpassed Wither. He said truly, in ( ' Fair 
Virtue," that the measure "liketh" him. The hepta- 

G 



82 GEORGE WITHER. , 

syllabic metre had been already rendered popular by 
Fletcher in his Faithful Shepherdess. The precise period 
when this exquisite pastoral tragi- comedy, as it is styled 
by the author, was composed, is not precisely known 5 
but that it was produced and acted before 1611 is evi- 
dent, from the circumstance of its being praised by 
Davies in his Scourge of Folly, published in that year. 
It was most likely printed soon after its first representa- 
tion, which was very unfavourably received. Ben Jonson 
called it " a murdered poem," and insinuates that its ill 
success was attributable to its purity and support of virtue. 
Italian pastoral poetry had been for some time cultivated 
in this country. The Amyntas of Tasso, and the Pastor 
Fido of Guarini, appeared in 1592 and 1602 3 the first 
translated by Fraunce, and the second by Dymock*. 
To return to Wither : not often has one poet addressed 
another in a sweeter strain than the following : — 

Go, my Y^illy, get thee gone, 
Leave me in exile alone. 
Hie thee to that merry throng 
And amaze them with thy song. 
Thou art young, yet such a lay 
Never graced the month of May, 
As (if they provoke thy skill) 
Thou canst fit unto the quill. 
I, with wonder, heard thee sing 
At our last years revelling : 
Then I with the rest was free, 
When unknown I noted thee, 
And perceived the ruder swains 
Envy thy far sweeter strains. 
Yea, I saw the lasses cling ' 
Round about thee in a ring ; 

* The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, by Henry Weber, Esq., 
14vcls.,1812, v. 4. 



GEORGE WITHER. 83 

As if each one jealous were 
Any but herself should hear. 

Browne did not forsake his friend in the hour of 
adversity, and Wither gratefully acknowledged that in 
listening to his cheerful music, he "forgot his wrong." 

Of Browne's history little is known. He was educated 
at Exeter College, Oxford, and subsequently belonged 
to the Inner Temple. We are told by Wood, that he 
had a little body and a great mind. The first part of 
Britannia s Pastorals was published in 1613, when the 
author was only twenty-three years old, and the second 
part in 1616. He was the beloved of Drayton and Ben 
Jonson, and the " severer muse " of Selden commended his 
"tuned essays." In 1624 he returned to Exeter Col- 
lege in the capacity of tutor to Robert Dormer, after- 
wards Earl of Caernarvon, who perished in the battle of 
Newbury. Of the later years of his life no account has 
been preserved. He appears to have resided in the 
family of Lord Pembroke, and to have obtained more 
wealth than usually falls to the lot of poets. But the 
Earl's Palace was a "Castle of Indolence" to Browne, 
and his agricultural employments also contributed to 
withdraw him from the service of the Muse. At any 
rate, his manhood never realized the promise of his 
youth. Browne is not popular, and never will be 3 yet 
we may say of him, in his own words, that he was 

A gentle shepherd, born in Arcady, 

That well could tune his pipe, and deftly * play 

The nymphs asleep with rural minstrelsy. 

The song of the bird among the dewy grass, or the 
faint shadow of a flower upon the water, were inspira- 
tions to him. His genius was not of the highest order, 

* Deftly — neatly, dexterously . 

G 2 



84 GEORGE WITHER. 

but it was pure and gentle ; and some of his smaller 
lyric poems are marked by a Grecian delicacy and finish. 
One specimen from his Original Poems, first published by 
Sir Egerton Brydges* will not be unacceptable : — 

Yet one day's rest for all my cries, 

One hour among so many ; 
Springs have their Sabbaths, my poor eyes 

Yet never met with any. 
He that doth but one woe miss, 

O Death ! to make him thine — 
I would to God that I had his, 

Or else that he had mine. 

To poems like this, we may apply Dryden's remark, 
in the dedication of the JEneid,, that the sweetest essences 
are always confined in the smallest glasses f. The Happy 
Life, in the same collection, is not less beautiful. 

The following are the exquisite lines upon poetry 
already referred to ; they have been frequently reprinted, 
but it would be unjust to Wither to omit them in this 
place : — 

And though for her sake I am crost, 
Though my best hopes I have lost, 
And knew she would make my trouble 
Ten times more than ten times double; 
I would love and keep her too, 
Spite of all the world could do — 

* From a MS. volume among the Lansdowne MSS. in the British 
Museum. * 

f While residing at Oxford with his pupil, Browne received the degree 
of Master of Arts, with this honourable notice in the Public Register: — 
Vir omni humand literatura et bonarum artium cognitione instructus. 

Browne has expressed his high opinion of Wither's poetry in Britannia's 
Pastorals, although the value of the praise is not increased by the inclu- 
sion of that dull writer, Davies :— 

Davies and Wither, by whose Muses' power, 
A natural day to me seems but an hour, 
And could I ever hear their learned lays, 
Ages would turn to artificial days. 

Brit. Past., b. 2, song 2. 



GEORGE WITHER. 85 

For though banisht from my flocks, 

And confin'd within these rocks, 

Here I waste away the light, 

And consume the sullen night, 

She doth for my comfort stay, 

And keeps many cares away. 

Though I miss the flow'ry fields, 

With those sweets the spring-tide yields, 

Though I may not see those groves, 

Where the shepherds chaunt their loves, 

And the lasses more excell 

Than the sweet-voiced Philomel. 

Though of all these pleasures past, 

Nothing now remains at last 

But Remembrance (poor relief), 

That makes more than mends my grief ; 

She's my mind's companion still, 

Maugre * Envy's evil will; 

She doth tell me where to borrow 

Comfort in the midst of sorrow ; 

Makes the desolatest place 

To her presence be a grace, 

And the blackest discontents 

Be her fairest ornaments. 

In my former days of bliss, 

Her divine skill taught me this, 

That from every thing I saw 

I could some invention draw, 

And raise pleasure to her height 

By the meanest objects sight. 

By the murmur of a spring, 

Or the least bough's rustleling (rusteling), 

Or a daisy whose leaves spread, 

Shut when Titan goes to bed, 

Or a shady bush or tree, 

She could more infuse in me, 

Maugre, in spite of, Malgre, French. — Nares's Glossary. 



86 GEORGE WITHER. 

Than all nature's beauties can, 

In some other wiser man ; 

By her help I also now, 

Make this churlish place allow 

Some things that may sweeten gladness 

In the very gall of sadness. 

The dull lowness, the black shade, 

That these hanging vaults have made* 

The strange music of the waves 

Beating on these hollow caves ; 

This black den which rocks emboss, 

Overgrown with eldest moss — 

The rude portals that give light 

More to Terror than Delight. 

This my chamber of Neglect, 

Walled about with Disrespect, — 

From all these, and this dull air, 

A fit object for Dispair, 

She hath taught me by her might, 

To draw comfort and delight; 

Therefore, thou best earthly bliss* 

I will cherish thee for this. 

Poesie, thou sweet* st content, 

That e're Heaven to mortals lent* 

Though they as a trifle leave thee, 

Whose dull thoughts cannot conceive thee; 

Thou then be to them a scorn, 

That to nought but earth are born — 

Let my life no longer be, 

Than I am in love with thee. 

The precise period of Withers imprisonment has not 
been ascertained 5 but he was evidently in the Marshalsea 
during the earlier spring and summer months 5 for Alexis, 
in the third eclogue, condoles with him for the loss of 
his liberty during the pleasant season : — 

When every bushy vale 
And grove and hill rings with the nightingale. 



GEORGE WITHER. 8/ 

His confinement is said by Wood to have increased his 
poetical reputation, especially among the puritanical 
party, who cried him up the more "for his profuse pour- 
ing forth of English rhime." Upon this " long-eared 
crew/' the exquisite melody of the Shepherd's Hunting 
must have been entirely lost. 

The fifth eclogue is dedicated to Master W. R, of the 
Middle Temple, a friend whom Wither seems to have met 
at the rooms of Browne. W. R, who, in the Shepherd's 
Hunting, is represented under the name of Alexis, was 
unremitting in his attentions to the poet during his 
abode in the Marshalsea ; and in the third eclogue his 
visits are gratefully remembered: — 

Alexis, you are welcome, for you know 

You cannot be but welcome where I am ; 

You ever were a friend of mine in shew, 

And I have found you are, indeed, the same. 

Upon my first restraint you hither came, 

And proffered me more tokens of your love 
Than it were fit my small deserts should prove. 
Wither did not quietly endure his incarceration. In 
1614, he addressed a satire to the King, written with 
great vigour and freedom. The following indignant lines 
have all the boldness and strength of Dry den's happiest 
efforts : — 

Do I not know a great man's power and might, 
In spite of innocence can smother right, 
Colour his villainies to get esteem, 
And make the honest man the villain seem. 
I know it, and the world doth know 'tis true, 
Yet I protest if such a man I knew, 
That might my country prejudice, or thee, 
Were he the greatest or the proudest he, 
That breathes this day ; if so it might be found 
That any good to either might redound, 



OO GEORGE WITHER. 

I, unappalled, dare in such a case 
Rip up his foulest crimes before his face, 
Though for my labour I were sure to drop 
Into the mouth of ruin without hope. 

He grieves only that he had been hitherto " so sparing " 
of his censure — 

Tde have my pen so paint it where it traces, 
Each accent should draw blood into their faces, 
And make them, when their villainies are blazed, 
Shudder and startle as men half-amazed, 
For fear my verse should make so loud a din, 
Heaven hearing might rain vengeance on our sin. 

The last line is an example of a Scriptural truth, most 
felicitously and appropriately applied. This satire bears 
a close resemblance in several expressions, and in its 
general tone, to passages in Ben Jonson's Every Man in 
his Humour, of which a surreptitious edition appeared 
in 1603. 

The most accomplished courtier of the Augustan age 
could not have exceeded the graceful elegance of the 
following lines to' James I — 

While here my Muse in discontent doth sing 
To thee, her great Apollo, and my king ; 
Imploring thee by that high, sacred name, 
By justice, and those powers that I could name : 
By whatsoe'er may move, entreat I thee, 
To be what thou art unto all, to me. 

Wither' s liberation from prison has been generally 
attributed to the influence of this satire 5 but Mr. Collier 
very properly observes, that he could never learn on 
what authority the assertion rested. Certainly not on 
the authority of Wither himself -, and it is scarcely rea- 
sonable to suppose that a poem of so much severity 
should have obtained a remission of the punishment 



GEORGE WITHER. 89 

awarded to a milder and even less obnoxious compo- 
sition. I am induced, by a passage in the fourth book 
of the Emblems, to ascribe his release to the friendly 
interposition of the Earl of Pembroke, who he tells the 
successor to the title (Philip), when the King, " by others 
misinformed," took offence at "his free lines,' , 

found such means and place, 

To bring and reconcile me to his grace, 
That therewith-all his majesty bestow' d 
A gift upon me which his bounty show'd, 
And had enrich' d me, if what was intended*, 
Had not by othersome been ill befriended, — 

And in the Schollers Purgatory he stated, many years 
earlier, that as soon as he had an opportunity to justify 
his honest intentions, and to give reasons for his ques- 
tionable expressions, he was restored to the common 
liberty, as he persuaded himself, with the good favour of 
the King and of all those that restrained him f . 

The gift bestowed upon him by the king, was the 
patent for his Hymns and Songs of the Church. The 
origin of this privilege Wither has explained. " For 

* Yet I confess the following passage, from Salt upon Salt, does not 
countenance this belief: — 

Thou hast, moreover, from the menacing 

And dreadful wrath of an incensed king, 

Delivered me without a mediator, 

Or back receding in the smallest letter, 

From truths averr'd. 
It is impossible to reconcile the conflicting statements respecting 
Wither's liberation. Taylor, in the Aqua Mus<e, asserted that he was 
released against his will, and that when they subsequently met, after 
having " used complimental courtesy," Wither advised him, in order 
to improve his fortune, to write satires and get imprisoned as he had 
done. It is not likely that the Water-poet had any grounds for this 
declaration. A man who came out of jail a beggar, could hardly be 
said to have improved his condition. 

t It would appear that Wither's imprisonment originated with the 
Privy Council, for he expresses his belief that his sufferings were un- 
known to " that honourable Council which committed him." 



90 GEORGE WITHER. 

before I had license to come abroad again into the 
world, I was forced to pay expenses so far beyond my 
ability, that ere I could be clearly discharged, I was left 
many pounds worse than nothing, and, to enjoy the 
name of liberty, was cast into a greater bondage than 
before. Wherefore, coming abroad again into the world, 
accompanied thither with those affections which are 
natural to most men, I was loth (if it might conveniently 
be prevented) either to sink below my rank, or to live 
at the mercy of a creditor. And, therefore, having none 
of those helps, or trades, or shifts, which many others 
have to relieve themselves withal, I humbly petitioned 
the king's most excellent Majesty, (not to be supplied 
at his, or by any projectment to the oppression of his 
people,) but that, according to the laws of nature, I 
might enjoy the benefit of my own labours, by virtue 
of his royal privilege. His Majesty vouchsafed my 
reasonable request with addition of voluntary favour, 
beyond my own desire*." 

The publication of the Hymns and Songs of the Church 
did not take place until some years after. 
■ He had also a share in the Shepherd's Pipe, which 
forms a meet companion to the Shepherd's Hunting. 

* The king's patent bears date the 17th day of February,- 1622-3. 
" James, by the grace of God. To all and singular printers, booksellers. 
Whereas our well-beloved subject, George Withers, gentleman, by his 
great industrie and diligent studie hath gathered and composed a book, 
entituled Hymnes and Songes of the Church, by him faithfullie and 
brieflie translated into lirick verse, which said booke being esteemed 
worthie and profitable to be incerted in convenient manner and due 
place into everie English Psalme-book in meeter. We give and grant 
full and free licence, power, and privilege unto the said George Withers, 
his executors and assigns, onelie to imprint, or cause to be imprinted, for 
the term of fifty and one years, &c. Witness ourself at Westminster 
the 17th day of February, reg. 20, 1622-3." — Rymer's Fcedera, v. xvii. 
454, where the patent is printed at length. It also states that the 
privilege was given for Wither's further " encouragement in such his 
endeavours." 



GEORGE WITHER. 91 

This beautiful poem, printed in 1614, has always been 
assigned to Browne j but it is attributed to Wither in 
the edition of his works published in 1620, and we have 
his own testimony in the Fides Anglicana, that it was 
f composed jointly by him and Mr. William Browne." 
Roget is clearly intended to represent Wither, and 
Willie, Browne. Warton alludes to the Shepherd's Pipe, 
and ascribes to Browne the publication of Occleve's 
version of the Story of King Darius' s Legacy to his Three 
Sons, in the Gesta Romanorum. The poem is contributed 
by Roget, already pointed out as the pastoral name 
of Wither, and in a note at the end of the first 
eclogue it is said, " as this shall please, I may be drawn 
to publish the rest of his works, being all perfect in my 
hands." Occleve has been called the disciple of Chaucer, 
and it will presently be seen, from the assistance fur- 
nished to the Rev. William Bedwell, in his antiquarian 
pursuits, by Wither, that he was considered " a man of 
exquisite judgment in that kind of learning." We may 
be justified, therefore, in awarding to him the merit of 
the publication of this old poem. 

The Shepherd's Pipe opens with Willie's consolation of 
his friend Roget. 

Roget, droop not, see the spring 
Is the earth enameling, 
And the birds on every tree 
Greet this morn with melody : 
Hark how yonder thrustle chaunts it, 
And her mate as proudly vaunts it. 
See how every stream is drest 
By her margin, with the best 
Of Flora's gifts, she seems glad 
For such brooks such flowers she had. 
All the trees are quaintly tired 
With green buds of all desired ; 



92 GEORGE WITHER. 

And the hawthorn every day- 
Spreads some little show of May. 
See the primrose sweetly set 
By the much-loved violet, 
All the banks so sweetly cover. 
* * * * 

Yet in all this merry tide, 
"When all cares are laid aside, 
Roget sits as if his blood 
Had not felt the quickning good 
Of the sun, nor cares to play 
Or with songs to pass the day 
As he wont. Fye, Roget, fye, 
Raise thy head, and merrily 
Tune us somewhat to thy reed. 
See our flocks do freely feed. 
Here we may together sit, 
And for music very fit 
Is this place ; from yonder wood 
Comes an echo shrill and good. 
Twice full perfectly it will, 
Answer to thine oaten quill. 

ROGET. 

Ah, Willie, Willie, why should I 
Sound my notes of jollity ? 
Since no sooner can I play 
Any pleasing roundelay, 
But some one or other still 
'Gins to descant on my quill, 
And will say, by this he me 
Meaneth in his minstrelsy. 

Can any one doubt, after reading these lines, that the 
poem was partly written by Wither ? 

The verses in which Roget commends the story of 
Occleve are exceedingly fanciful and elegant 5 but 
Warton was correct in saying that the eulogy was un- 
deserved. 



GEORGE WITHER. 93 

Tis a song not many swains 

Singen can, and though it he 

Not so deckt with nicety 

Of sweet words full sweetly chused, 

As are now by shepherds used ; 

Yet if well you sound the sense, 

And the moral 1 s excellence, 

You shall find it quit the while, 

And excuse the homely style. 

Well I wot the man that first 

Sang this lay, did quench his thirst, 

Deeply as did ever one 

In the Muses Helicon. 

Many times he hath been seen 

With the fairies on the green, 

And to them his pipe did sound, 

Whifst they danced in a round. 

Mickle* solace would they make him, 

And at midnight often wake him, 

And convey him from his room, 

To a field of yellow broom ; 

Or into the meadows where 

Mints perfume the gentle air, 

And where Flora spends her treasure, 

There they would begin their measure. 

The Shepherd's Pipe is dedicated by Browne to Lord 
Zouch, the friend of Sir Henry Wotton, and the poet 
dwells with evident pleasure upon the shades of the 
" delightful Bramshill." Lord Zouch is supposed to 
have been the occasional patron of Ben Jonson, who 
called him " good Lord Zouch." It was in the park of 
this magnificent seat that Archbishop Parker, while 

* Mickle, great. In this sense it is used by Shakspeare. 
O mickle is the powerful grace that lies 
In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities. 

Rom. and Jul. ii. 3. — Nares's Glossartf. 



94 GEORGE WITHER. 

hunting, in the summer of 1612,, accidentally struck 
with an arrow Peter Hawkins, one of the keepers. 

After his liberation, with a view of recreating his 
mind during severer studies, "Wither wrote his Motto. 

Of this book he tells us, in the Fragmenta Prophetica, 
thirty thousand copies were disposed of within a few 
months. The author numbers it among the books com- 
posed when he was of maturer years. His object was 
to draw the " true picture" of his own heart, that his 
friends who "knew him outwardly might have some 
representation of his inside also." But he was at the 
same time actuated by a higher and better feeling, that 
of confirming himself in his own good resolutions, and 
of preventing "such alterations as time and infirmities" 
might tend to produce. The poem is, therefore, rather 
moral and didactic than satiric — the poet's " furies were 
tied in chains." At this period Wither was in comfort- 
able circumstances. In the Inventory of his Wealth, he 
enumerates a friend, books and papers, which he calls 
his jewels, a servant, and a horse. The merits of the 
Motto will be sufficiently exemplified by one or two 
specimens. The following passage contains all the ma- 
terials of poetry 5 it only requires the taste and finish 
of a patient architect*. 

Yet I confess, in this my pilgrimage, 
I, like some infant, am of tender age. 
For as the child who from his father hath 
Stray'd in some grove thro' many a crooked path ; 

* Not the least singular part of the Motto is the frontispiece. The 
author is represented sitting on a rock, with gardens, houses, woods and 
meadows, spread beneath him, to which he points with his finger, holding 
a riband, on which is written nee habeo, nor have I. At his feet is a 
globe of the earth, with the words nee euro, nor care 7. The poet him- 
self sits with eyes uplifted towards heaven, from which a ray of light 
descends, and from his lips proceed nee careo, nor want I. 



GEORGE WITHER. 95 

Is sometimes hopeful that he finds the way, 
And sometimes doubtful he runs more astray. 
Sometime with fair and easy paths doth meet, 
Sometime with rougher tracts that stay his feet ; 
Here goes, there runs, and yon amazed stays ; 
Then cries, and straight forgets his care, and plays. 
Then hearing where his loving father calls, 
Makes haste, hut through a zeal ill-guided falls ; 
Or runs some other way, until that he 
(Whose love is more than his endeavours be) 
To seek the wanderer, forth himself doth come, 
And take him in his arms, and bear him home. 
So in this life, this grove of ignorance, 
As to my homeward, I myself advance, 
Sometimes aright, and sometimes wrong I go, 
Sometimes my pace is speedy, sometimes slow : 
One while my ways are pleasant unto me, 
Another while as full of cares they be. 
I doubt and hope, and doubt and hope again, 
And many a change of passion I sustain 
In this my journey, so that now and then 
I lost, perhaps, may seem to other men. 
Yea, to myself awhile, when sins impure 
Do my Redeemers love from me obscure. 
But whatsoe'er betide, I know full well, 
My Father, who above the clouds doth dwell, 
An eye upon his wandering child doth cast, 
And he will fetch me to my home at last. 

Passages like this, full of beautiful reliance upon the 
mercy and long suffering of our heavenly Father, abound 
in almost every page of the poet's compositions, casting 
a hallowing light over much that is unworthy both of 
the writer and the Christian. 

The indignant attack upon the hired flatterers and 
elegists of the day deserves to be extracted. Wither 
preserved himself, in a great measure, unspotted from 
this c: burning sin" of the as;e he lived in. 



96 GEORGE WITHER. 

I have no Muses that will serve the turn, 

At every triumph, and rejoice or mourn, 

After a minute's warning, for their hire, 

If with old sherry they themselves inspire. 

I am not of a temper like to those 

That can provide an hours sad talk in prose 

For any funeral, and then go dine, 

And choke my grief with sugar-plums and wine. 

I cannot at the claret sit and laugh, 

And then, half tipsy, write an epitaph. 

I cannot for reward adorn the hearse 

Of some old rotten miser with my verse ; 

Nor like the poetasters of the time, 

Go howl a doleful elegy in rhyme 

For every lord or ladyship that dies, 

And then perplex their heirs to patronize 

That muddy poesy. Oh, how I scorn 

Those raptures which are free and nobly born, 

Should, fidler-like, for entertainment scrape 

At strangers' windows, and go play the ape 

In counterfeiting passion. 

An occasional resemblance has been pointed out 
between the style of Wither and Churchill ; but Wither 
was as inferior to that ill-judging writer in the general 
fertility and poignancy of his invective as he was supe- 
rior in what alone can render satire effective, or even 
justifiable, the wish to benefit our fellow-men. Churchill's 
genius was only surpassed by his profligacy ; arid while 
we acknowledge the justice of Cowper's eulogy upon his 
talents, we almost regret that it was ever bestowed. 
Tears are a more seemly offering than flowers upon the 
grave of impurity and vice ! 

Wood said of the notorious John Lilburne, that if he 
had been left alone in the world, " John would be against 
Lilburne, and Lilburne against John." Wither partook 



GEORGE WITHER. 97 

of this quarrelsome disposition. In a postscript to the 
Motto, he exclaims, — 

Quite thro' this Island hath my Motto rung, 
And twenty days are past since I uphung 
My bold Impreza, which defiance throws 
At all the malice of Fair Virtues foes*. 

But, although no person had answered his challenge, 
his enemies, hoping to " move his choler and his patience 
shake," had hired some rhymers 

To chew 
Their rancour into balladry. 

The only known work to which his allusion can apply 
was Taylor's Motto, published in 1621, and playfully 
dedicated to Every Body, as Wither s had been to Any 
Body f. Of Taylor, or to speak of him in more familiar 
terms, the Water-poet, a most interesting account has 
been given by Dr. Southey, in his notice of uneducated 
poets. Taylor was an honest right-hearted man, a 
sincere and devoted loyalist, and a very good poet for a 
waterman. He was also no mean scholar, having read 

* Probably in allusion to the custom, among fencing-masters and 
others, frequently mentioned in old plays, of fixing a challenge on a 
post. Beaumont, refers to this practice in his verses to Fletcher upon 
the Faithful Shepherdess. 

t In 1625 was printed at Oxford, an " Answer to Wither's Motto, with- 
out a frontispiece ; wherein nee habeo, nee careo, nee euro, are neither 
approved nor confuted, but modestly controuled or qualified by F. G., 
Esq." The object of this tract, according to Park, (Brit. Bib., v. 1, 
p. 189) is to point out some contradictory passages in Wither's Motto, 
which either the timidity or ignorance of the writer prevented him from 
doing effectually. From the manner in which Wither alludes to the 
Motto in the Premonition to Britain's Remembrancer, it seems probable 
that the ' Balladry ' particularly referred to has been lost. His words are, 
" Against my Motto, though (as I forespake) it redounded to their own 
shame, so raged my adversaries, that not content with my personal 
troubles, they sought the disparagement of that book by a libellous 
answer thereunto. * * * And then, also, it was very gloriously 
fixed on the gate of my lodging, as if it had been some bill of triumph. 
But it proved a ridiculous pamphlet, and became more loss and dis- 
grace unto the divulgers thereof than I desired." 

H 



98 GEORGE WITHER. 

Homer, Virgil, Ovid, and Tasso, of course in translations, 
besides many worthies of his own country. He wrote 
also with great facility. His Motto, we learn from his 
own narrative, was written in "three days at most;" 
but so far was its author from entertaining any feeling 
of enmity, or even rivalry against Wither, that he dis- 
tinctly says, 

This Motto in my head at first I took 
In imitation of a better book. 

It is scarcely necessary to say that this "better book" 
was Withers Motto. 

The earliest extant copy of Fidelia bears the date of 
1 6 1 9 3 but we are told by the publisher, George Norton, 
that it had long since " been imprinted for the use of 
the author, to bestow it on such as had voluntarily 
requested it in way of adventure*." Mr. Park thinks 
that it was privately circulated, perhaps with a hope of 
a pecuniary return, in order to assist the writer during 
his imprisonment in the Marshalsea. The title of Fidelia 
may have been suggested by Spenser, who had bestowed 
the appellation upon Faith in the Faerie Queen. Fidelia 
is described as the "fragment of some greater poem, 
and discovers the modest affections of a discreet and 
constant woman shadowed under the name of Fidelia." 
The charm of the epistle consists in its domestic tender- 
ness, and in the natural air of melancholy fondness 
breathing through it in every line. The influence of the 
absence of a beloved object upon the fairest scenes of 
nature has rarely been portrayed with more truth or 
pathos. The hawthorn her friend had trimmed, the bank 

* It also appeared in 1620, 1622, 1633, and lastly, under the editorship 
ofSir Egerton Brydges, in 1815. George Norton kept, a shop at the 
sign of the Red Bull, near Temple Bar. — Brit. Bibliog., v. 1, p. 184. 



GEORGE WITHER. 99 

on which he lay near a shady mulberry, and the twilight 
harbours where the shadows seemed to woo 

The weary lovesick passenger to sit, 

are all affectionately remembered. 

Annexed to Fidelia are two sonnets, Hence away, thou 
Siren, leave me, and Shall I wasting in Despair, both of 
which have been reprinted in Percy's Reliques of Ancient 
English Poetry. The second song Park thinks had its 
prototype in Browne's Britannia s Pastorals, but he 
assigns no reason for giving the priority of invention to 
Browne. The beauty of these sonnets has been univer- 
sally acknowledged. Shall I wasting in Despair, which 
it has been kindly observed, Ben Jonson did Wither the 
honour to parody, was a general favourite during the 
Author's life-time. Numerous imitations of it have been 
pointed out. These poems were subsequently incor- 
porated into Fair-Virtue, with some alterations, as Park 
has observed, not always for the better. 

In the same year appeared the Preparation for the 
Psalter, a specimen of a voluminous commentary upon 
the Psalms, which the author never completed. Yet 
even here the polemical spirit of the Satirist occasionally 
manifests itself. Wither, unfortunately, did not suffi- 
ciently remember when he stood upon Holy Ground. 
To the Preparation he prefixed what he calls a Sonnet, 
forming a very spirited paraphrase upon the 148th Psalm. 
Merrick's version will read coldly after the following: — 

Come, O come, with sacred lays, 
Let us sound tli Almighty's praise. 
Hither bring in true concent, 
Heart, and voice, and instrument. 
Let the orpharion sweet 
With the harp and viol meet : 

h 2 



100 GEORGE WITHER. 

To your voices tune the lute ; 
Let not tongue, nor string be mute : 
Nor a creature dumb be found, 
That hath either voice or sound. 

Let such things as do not live, 
In still music praises give : 
Lowly pipe, ye worms that creep, 
On the earth, or in the deep, 
Loud aloft your voices strain, 
Beasts and monsters of the main. 
Birds, your warbling treble sing ; 
Clouds, your peals of thunder ring ; 
Sun and moon, exalted higher, 
And you, stars, augment the quire. 

Come, ye sons of human race, 
In this chorus take your place, 
And amid this mortal throng, 
Be you masters of the song. 
Angels and celestial powers, 
Be the noblest tenor yours. 
Let, in praise of God, the sound 
Run a never-ending round ; 
That our holy hymn may be 
Everlasting, as is He. 

From the earth's vast hollow womb, 
Music's deepest base shall come. 
Sea and floods, from shore to shore, 
Shall the counter-tenor roar. 
To this concert, when we sing, 
Whistling winds, your descant bring : 
Which may bear the sound above, 
Where the orb of fire doth move ; 
And so climb from sphere to sphere, 
Till our song th' Almighty hear. 

So shall He from Heaven's high tower, 
On the earth his blessings shower ; 



GEORGE WITHER. 101 

All this huge wide orb we see, 
Shall one quire, one temple be. 
There our voices we will rear, 
Till we fill it every where : 
And enforce the fiends that dwell 
In the air, to sink to hell. 
Then, O come, with sacred lays, 
Let us sound th' Almighty's praise. 

In the Preparation to the Psalter, Wither announced his 
intention of dividing his Treatise upon the Psalms into 
fifteen Decades. The Exercises upon the First Psalm 
were published in 1620, and inscribed to Sir John Smith, 
Knt., only son of Sir Thomas Smith, Governor of the 
East India Company, from whom the poet had received 
many tokens of regard. The Exercises upon the nine 
following Psalms, we are told in the Fides Anglicana, 
were lost. 

In 1621 Wither published the Songs of the Old Testa- 
ment, translated into English measures 5 afterwards re- 
printed in the Hymns and Songs of the Church. 

One of the most beautiful and least known of Wither's 
early productions, is Fair Virtue, the Mistress of Philarete, 
which, although not published until 1622, is described 
as one of his " first poems, and composed many years 
agone." The MS. having been secretly " gotten out of 
the author's custody by a friend of his," came into the 
hands of Marriot, the bookseller, who having obtained 
a license for it, intended to print it without any further 
inquiry: but hearing accidentally the name of Wither 
mentioned as the real author, Marriot applied to him 
for permission to affix his name to the title-page, a re- 
quest he found the poet unwilling to comply with, " fear- 
ing that the seeming lightness of such a subject might 
somewhat disparage the more serious studies" he had 



102 GEORGE WITHER. 

since undertaken. These particulars are gathered from 
the address to the reader, professedly written by Mar- 
riot, but in reality furnished to him, at his own desire, 
by Wither himself. Wither at length consented that 
Fair Virtue should be published, but without his name; 
and in compliance with his wish, the title-page bears 
this quaint inscription : — Fair Virtue, the Mistress of 
Philarete, written by Himself. He accompanied the poem 
with these singular words, ' ' When I first composed it I 
well liked thereof, and it well enough became my years ; 
but now I neither like nor dislike it. That, therefore, 
it should be divulged I desire not 3 and whether it be, 
or whether (if it happen so) it be approved or no, / care 
not. For this I am sure of, that however it be valued, 
it is worth as much as I prize it at; likely it is, also, to 
be beneficial to the world, as the world hath been to me, 
and will be more than those who like it not ever deserved 
at my hands." 

The mystery hanging over certain parts of the poem, 
Wither refused to clear up, being unwilling, he said, to 
take away the occupation of his interpreter, and he pur- 
posely left somewhat remaining doubtful, to see " what 
Sir Politick Would-be and his companions could pick 
out of it." Whether, therefore, to employ the words of 
the address, the Mistress of Philarete be really a woman 
shadowed under the name of Virtue, or Virtue only 
whose loveliness is represented by the beauty of an ex- 
cellent woman, or whether it mean both together I can- 
not tell you. Wither was anxious to bury the subject 
in obscurity, but the opinion that he intended to portray 
the charms and piety of some lady in the neighbourhood 
of Bentworth seems to be corroborated by certain "verses 
written to his loving friend upon his departure," inserted 



GEORGE WITHER. 103 

at the end of Fair Virtue, and signed " PmT arete $" in 
which he describes her to have given "her vows" to 
another, and urges the propriety of their separation. 

The Mistress of Philarete was evidently the production 
of Wither's youthful Muse, and bears internal evidence 
of having been composed in the sequestered retirements 
of Bentworth and its neighbourhood. The poem opens 
with an introduction in heroic metre, unlike his later 
style, and resembling rather the soft and limpid versi- 
fication of Browne : — 

Two pretty rills do meet, and, meeting, make 

Within one valley a large silver lake, 

About whose banks the fertile mountains stood, 

In ages passed bravely crown'd with wood ; 

Which lending cold sweet shadows gave it grace 

To be accounted Cynthia s bathing-place. 

And from her father Neptune's brackish court, 

Fair Thetis hither often would resort, 

Attended by the fishes of the sea, 

Which in those sweeter waters came to play. 

There would the daughter of the sea-god dive ; 

And thither came the land-nymphs every eve, 

To wait upon her ; bringing for her brows 

Rich garlands of sweet flowers, and beechy boughs ; 

For pleasant was that pool ; and near it then 
Was neither rotten marsh, nor boggy fen. 
It was not overgrown with boisterous sedge, 
Nor grew there rudely then along the edge 
A bending willow, nor a prickly bush, 
Nor broad-leaf 'd flag, nor reed, nor knotty rush. 
But here, well order d was a grove with "bowers, 
There grassy plots set round about with flowers. 
Here, you might thro 1 the waters see the land 
Appear, strew'd o'er with white, or yellow sand. 
Yea, deeper was it : and the wind by whiffs 
Would make it rise, and wash the little cliffs 



104 GEORGE WITHER. 

On which oft pluming sat unfrighted then, 
The gaggling wild-goose, and the snow-white swan ; 
"With all the flocks of fowls, which to this day, 
Upon those quiet waters breed and play. 

All the features of this animated landscape are not 
yet obliterated. The Ford of Arle, or Arlesford Pond, 
lying S.W. of the town of that name, is a fine piece of 
water, covering nearly two hundred acres, and forming 
a head to the river Itchin. A few years ago boats were 
kept upon this lake by the proprietors of the neighbour- 
ing estates, and "the gaggling wild-goose" might be 
seen "oft pluming," without any fear, upon the quiet 
waters : 

North-east, not far from this great pool, there lies 

A tract of beechy mountains that arise, 

With leisurely ascending, to such height, 

As from their tops the warlike Isle of Wight 

You in the ocean s bosom may espie, 

Tho' near two hundred furlongs hence it lie. 

The pleasant way, as up those hills you climb, 

Is strewed o'er with marjoram and thyme 

Which grows unset. The hedge-rows do not want 

The cowslip, violet, primrose, nor a plant 

That freshly scents : as birch, both green and tall, 

Low sallows on whose bloomings bees do fall, 

Fair woodbines, which about the hedges twine, 

Smooth privet, and the sharp sweet eglantine, 

With many more, whose leaves and blossoms fair, 

The earth adorn, and oft perfume the air. 

E'en there, and in the least frequented place 

Of all these mountains, is a little space 

Of pleasant ground, hemm'd in with dropping trees, 

And those so thick, that Phoebus scarcely sees 

The earth they grow on once in all the year, 

Nor what is done among the shadows there. 



GEORGE WITHER. 105 

Along these sequestered paths the poet represents " a 
troop of beauties/' 

Known well nigh 
Through all the plains of happy Britainy. 

meeting, in their wanderings, the 

Little flock of Pastor Phil are t, 
a shepherd's lad, the first who had ever sung his loves 
to those beechy groves. 

They saw him not, nor them perceived he, 

For in the branches of a maple-tree 

He shrouded sat, and taught the hollow hill 

To echo forth the music of his quill, 

Whose tattling voice redoubled to the sound, 

That where he was conceal' d they quickly found. 

Philarete leads the ladies to a harbour, and they 
entreat him to sing. At first he refuses, but at length 
complies, and commences the poem. That a compo- 
sition like Fair Virtue, abounding in beauties of a high 
order, should have remained in almost total oblivion 
from the edition of si 633, until Sir Egerton Brydges' 
reprint in 1818, certainly reflects no credit upon the 
editors of our elder poets. Bishop Percy had, indeed, 
with an impropriety of taste singular in that accom- 
plished scholar, pronounced the Mistress of Philarete " a 
long pastoral piece 5" but even the extract given in the 
Reliques might have tempted the reader to seek the work 
itself. Into the merits of the poem, however, I cannot 
enter, for I am anxious to confine myself to the more 
strictly religious productions of its author. Viewed as 
the composition of a very young man, Fair Virtue may 
safely challenge comparison with any poetical work in 
the language, produced at a similar age *. Its perusal 

* In a sonnet at the end of Fair Virtue y Wither says, of summers he 
had seen " twice three times three." 



106 GEORGE WITHER. 

may be recommended to every lover of pure and unaf- 
fected poetry. He will find in it passages of the most 
passionate beauty, of the sweetest and clearest sim- 
plicity, of the most delicate fancy, and the most pic- 
turesque description, and all " set forth" in a harmony 
of versification not often found in the poetry of the 
reign of James. 

When Philarete had ended his song and departed, a 
lady from among the Nymphs, having taken up her lute, 
commemorated his talents in a little carol, entitled The 
Nymph's Song. I cannot refrain from quoting a few 
stanzas from this song, which it would be difficult to 
excel either in melody or purity of expression : — 

Gentle swain good speed befall thee, 
And in love still prosper thou : 
Future times shall happy call thee, 
Though thou lie neglected now. 

Virtue's lovers shall commend thee, * 

And perpetual fame attend thee. 

Happy are these woody mountains 
In whose shadows thou dost hide ; 
And as happy are those fountains 
By whose murmurs thou dost bide ; 

For contents are here excelling 

More than in a prince's dwelling. 

There thy nocks do clothing bring thee ; 

And thy food out of the fields : 

Pretty songs the birds do sing thee ; 

Sweet perfumes the meadow yields. 
And what more is worth the seeing, 
Heaven and earth thy prospect being ? 

Thy affection reason measures 
And distempers none it feeds ; 



GEORGE WITHER. 107 

Still so harmless are thy pleasures 
That no others grief it breeds. 

And if night begets thee sorrow, 

Seldom stays it till the morrow. 

Who does not regret that the wish breathed in the 
concluding stanzas of this song was not realized, that 
the poet did not continue to dwell in peace among those 
"lonely groves/' by no false visions of ambition or of 
hope allured into the tumult of active life, where he 
could gain nothing to compensate for the serenity and 
happiness he left behind ! 

Wither' s favourite poets, at this time, seem to have 
been " Sweet Drayton," as he calls him, Thomas Lodge, 
and Sir Philip Sidney. 

Mr. D 'Israeli, in his amusing Quarrels of Authors, has 
not made any mention of the enmity which appears to 
have subsisted between Wither and Ben Jonson. The 
latter poet, in his Masque of Time Vindicated, which was 
represented with great splendour on the 19th of January, 
1 623, gave utterance to his dislike. Mr. Gifford thinks 
this poem a "kind of retort courteous" to the scur- 
rilous satires of the day, and Chronomastix a generic 
name for the herd of libellists ; but Wither, in the 7th 
canto of Britain s Remembrancer, considers the epithet ap- 
plied particularly to himself. Speaking of the poetasters 
who delighted to disparage his talents, he says, 

The valiant poet they [me] in scorn do call, 
The Chronomastix. 

When Wither published his Abuses, &c, he spoke in 
honourable terms of " the deep conceits of now flourish- 
ing Jonson," and it is not improbable that, while a gay 
and idle member of Lincoln's Inn, he may have quaffed 
a cup of claret with Ben at his favourite " House of 



108 GEORGE WITHER. 

Call/' in Friday Street. At any rate their intimacy was 
soon divided, and frequent expressions of disgust may be 
found in Withers poems, at the wine-parties and revel- 
lings of Jonson. There was, indeed, no bond of union 
between them, either in disposition or genius. Jonson, 
with his recondite learning, his antique imagery, and 
his "fil'd" language, looked with unconcealed contempt 
upon the simplicity and homeliness of the Shepherd- 
poet. Wither often complained that the want of anti- 
quity and reading was frequently charged against him 
by rival poets. 

Jonson, who sought for his treasures among the 
" drowned lands " of ancient days, could not be ex- 
pected to feel much sympathy with one who found 
music " in the least bough's rustling," and a spirit of 
sweet poetry in "the yellow broom " at his feet." 

I have already alluded to the Songs and Hymns of 
the Church. None of Wither' s numerous works pos- 
sess greater interest. Their history is detailed at length 
in the Schollers Purgatory, a pamphlet addressed, about 
the year 1624, to Archbishop Abbot and the other 
Bishops of the Convocation, in vindication of the Patent. 
The Hymns and Songs arose out of a translation of 
Psalms of which notice will be subsequently taken. 
Wither observed that the " excellent expressions of the 
Holy Ghost" were put forth in rude and barbarous 
numbers, while Ci the wanton fancies were painted and 
trimmed out in the most moving language 3" and that 
the people, like those against whom the prophet Haggai 
complained, seemed " to dwell in cieled houses," while 
the temple of God was laid waste. Seeing, therefore, 
no other person prepared to make the attempt, he spent 
about three years in fitting himself for the task of trans- 



GEORGE WITHER. 109 

lating the Psalms, but before he " had half ended them/' 
the report "that one of much better proficiency had 
made a long and happy progress into the work," induced 
him for a time to relinquish his labours. But that his 
original intention might not be altogether disappointed, 
at the request of some of the clergy, he translated and 
rendered into lyric verse the hymns dispersed through- 
out the Canonical Scriptures, to which he subsequently 
added spiritual songs appropriated to the several times 
and occasions observable in the Church of England. It 
was for this collection that the royal patent had been 
obtained. Wither found a body of most active and 
malignant enemies in the Company of Stationers, who 
considered their own privileges invaded by Withers 
patent. Among other things, they asserted that the 
hymns were written for his pecuniary benefit alone, a 
charge to which he in part pleaded guilty. " My weak 
fortunes," he says, "my troubles, and the chargeable - 
ness of a study that brings with it no outward supply, 
put me into a kind of necessity, as it were, to cast my 
thoughts aside unto worldly prospects. But I have since 
been sorry for it upon better consideration." 

Withers anxiety respecting his Hymns may be par- 
doned. He had been induced by the kind and flattering 
favour of the King "to engage his credit almost 300/. 
further, to divulge the book," and by the animosity of 
the stationers, he felt himself deprived not only of all 
superfluities, but even of the means of subsistence. " For 
when those friends," he adds, "who are engaged for me, 
are satisfied, to which purpose there is yet, I praise God, 
sufficient set apart, I vow, in the faith of an honest man, 
that there will not be left me in all the world, to defend 
me against my adversaries and supply the common 



110 GEORGE WITHER. 

necessities of nature, so much as will feed me for one 
week, unless I labour for it." 

His vindication of his own fitness for the work he had 
undertaken is manly and eloquent : — 

" I wonder what divine calling Sternhold and Hop- 
kins had more than I have, that their metrical Psalms 
may be allowed of rather than my Hymns. Surely if 
to have been groom of the Privy Chamber were sufficient 
to qualify them, that profession which I am of may as 
well fit me for what I have undertaken, who having first 
laid the foundation of my studies in one of our famous 
Universities, have ever since builded thereon towards the 
erecting of such fabrics as I have now in hand. 

" But I would gladly know by what rule those men 
discern of spirits who condemn my work as the endeavour 
of a private spirit. The time was, men did judge the 
tree by its fruit $ but now, they will judge the fruit by 
the tree. If I have expressed any thing repugnant to 
the analogy of the Christian Faith, or irreverently op- 
posed the orderly and allowed discipline, or dissented 
in any point from that spirit of verity which breathes 
through the Holy Catholic Church, then let that which 
I have done be taxed for the work of a private spirit. 
Or if it may appear that I have indecently intruded to 
meddle with those mysteries of our Christian Sanctuary, 
which the God of order hath, by his Divine law, reserved 
for those who have, according to his Ordinance, a special 
calling thereunto, then, indeed, let me be taxed as deserv- 
ing both punishment and reproof. 

" But if, making conscience of my actions, I observed 
that seemly distance which may make it appear I in- 
truded not upon ought appropriated to the outward 
ministry -, if, like an honest-hearted Gibeouite, I have 



GEORGE WITHER. Ill 

but a little extraordinarily laboured to hew wood and to 
draw water for the spiritual sacrifices ; if, according to the 
art of the apothecary, I have composed a sweet perfume 
to offer unto God, in such manner as is proper to my own 
faculty only, and then brought it to those to whom the 
consecration thereof belongs 5 if, keeping my own place, 
I have laboured for the building up of God's house, as 
I am bound to do, in offering up of that which God hath 
given me, and making use, with modesty, of those gifts 
which were bestowed on me to that purpose ; if, I say, 
the case be so, what blame-worthy have I done ? Why 
should those disciples who follow Christ in a nearer 
place, forbid us from doing good in his name, who follow 
him further off ? Why should they, with Joshua, forbid 
Eldad and Medad from prophesying, seeing that Jevery 
good Christian wisheth, with Moses, that God's people 
were all prophets, and that he would give his spirit to 
them all." 

This passage is interesting on many accounts, espe- 
cially as showing the sentiments of Wither towards the 
established Church. In another part of the same pam- 
phlet he declares, in a strain of vigour and richness 
almost worthy of Jeremy Taylor himself, that neither 
the swelling impostumations of vain-glory, nor the itch- 
ings of singularity, nor the ticklings of self-love, nor the 
convulsions of envy, nor the inflammations of revenge, 
nor the hunger and thirst of gold, were able to move 
him to the prosecution of any thing repugnant to 
religion or the authority of the Church*. So highly 

* The same sentiment had been before expressed in the Motto : — 
In my religion I dare entertain 
No fancies hatched in mine own weak brain, 
Nor private spirits, but am ruled by 
The Scriptures, and that Church authority. 



112 GEORGE WITHER. 

were Withers talents and honesty at this time esteemed, 
that he was even urged to take Holy Orders -, and his 
"possibilities of outward preferments in that way, he 
tells us, were not the least." But "while no man living 
more honoured the calling," he considered himself dis- 
abled by his own unworthiness, independent of the 
belief he constantly indulged, that God had appointed 
him "to serve him in some other course." 

Very tempting overtures had also been made to Wither 
by some of the numerous sectaries of the day, and he 
declared that he had been offered a larger yearly stipend, 
and more "respective entertainments to employ himself 
in setting forth heretical fancies than he had any pro- 
bability of obtaining by the profession of the truth. Yea, 
sometimes," he continues, " I have been wooed to the 
profession of their wild and ill-grounded opinions by the 
sectaries of so many several separations, that had I liked, 
or rather had not God been the more merciful to me, I 
might have been Lieutenant, if not Captain, of some new 
band of such volunteers long e'er this time." 

These were the sentiments of the writer in ] 623-4. 

Nothing was left undone on the part of the stationers 
to annoy or injure the unfortunate poet. They refused 
to provide copies of the Hymns in their shops, alleging 
as their excuse " that none would fetch them out of their 
hands," although Wither assures us in his Schollers Pur- 
gatory, that the work was so much inquired after, that 
twenty thousand might have been speedily dispersed. 
Some compared the Hyrnns to "Dod the Silkman's" 
version of the Psalms, which had been recently con* 
demned to the fire ; and others styled them in derision, 
" Withers Sonnets," and said that they would procure 
" the roving ballad- singer, with one leg," to sell them 



GEORGE WITHER. 113 

about the city. Wither' s miseries were not confined to 
the malignant opposition of the stationers. u Wherever 
I come/' he complained, " one giddy brain or another 
offers to fall into disputation with me about my Hymns 5 
yea, brokers, and costermongers, and tapsters, and ped- 
lars, and sempsters, and fiddlers, and felt-makers, and 
all the brotherhood of Amsterdam, have scoffingly passed 
sentence upon me in their conventicles, at tap -houses 
and taverns." 

It was natural that Wither should feel bitterly these 
attacks of the ignorant and malevolent, and he alludes 
with pardonable self-satisfaction to the Christian inten- 
tions with which the Sacred Songs had been composed, 
and the many hours at midnight he had devoted to their 
study when his traducers were asleep. The composition 
of his Hymns had contributed to beguile the tedious and 
melancholy hours of his imprisonment in the Marshal- 
sea. Wither is not the only poet whose harp has given 
utterance to the sweetest and holiest music while it 
hung upon the willow- tree. It was in a lonely dungeon 
at Coimbra, in Portugal, that the accomplished Buchanan 
prepared his elegant translation of the Psalms. A list 
of books produced during confinement would be both 
interesting and instructive. The names of Boethius, 
of Grotius, and of Raleigh, arise immediately to the 
memory*. 

The Hymns and Songs of the Church are known to many 

* I find the following notices in the Journals of the House of Commons. 
" One hath a patent of sole printing on one side : hath been often warned 
to bring it in. To have the sergeant at arms go for him. Ordered. The 
like for Wither's patent."— J. of H. of C., May 15, 1624. 

"After complaint made against Withers, the sergeant's man, who 
took him, related at the bar how he was withstood and abused by one at 
whose house Withers lay. That Withers assisted him, and kept him 
from wrong."— J. of H. of C, May 22, 1624. 

It is probable that these extracts apply to our poet. 



114 GEORGE WITHER. 

of my readers,, and can hardly fail of being admired for 
their unaffected piety, and plaintive harmony of expres- 
sion. They breathe a domestic tenderness and sim- 
plicity not more rare than precious. Take for example 
two stanzas from the Thanksgiving for Victory. — 

We love thee, Lord, we praise thy name, 
Who by Thy great almighty arm, 
Hast kept us from the spoil and shame 
Of those that sought our causeless harm : 
Thou art our life, our triumph-song, 
The joy and comfort of our heart, 
To Thee all praises do belong, 
And Thou the Lord of armies art. 

This song we therefore sing to Thee, 
And pray that Thou for ever more 
Wouldst our Protector deign to be, 
As at this time and heretofore. 
That Thy continual favour shown 
May cause us more to Thee incline, 
And make throughout the world be known 
That such as are our foes, are Thine. 

The prayer for Seasonable Weather is not 1 less simple 
and earnest. 

Lord, should the sun, the clouds, the wind, 

The air and seasons be 
To us so froward and unkind, 

As we are false to Thee ; 
All fruits would quite away be burhd, 

Or lie in water drown 1 d, 
Or blasted be, or overturnd, 

Or chilled on the ground. 

But from our duty though we swerve, 

Thou still dost mercy show, 
And deign Thy creatures to preserve 

That men might thankful grow ; 



GEORGE WITHER. 115 

Yet, though from day to day we sin, 

And Thy displeasure gain, 
No sooner we to cry begin, 

But pity we obtain. 

The weather now Thou changed hast, 

That put us late to fear, 
And when our hopes were almost past, 

Then comfort did appear. 
The heaven the earth's complaint hath heard, 

They reconciled be, 
And Thou such weather hast prepard, 

As we desird of Thee. 

The touching pathos of these verses will be felt by all. 
Wither seems to have been convinced, with Johnson, 
that Omnipotence could not be exalted, and that perfec- 
tion could not be improved. His language is unadorned 
and homely, and the thoughts such as would naturally 
arise to a calm and benevolent mind. Yet his humblest 
strains frequently awake a cheerfulness and serenity in 
the heart of the reader. The spirit of his supplication is 
so pure and beautiful, that we do not doubt for an 
instant that the golden sceptre of mercy will be ex- 
tended to it*. 

The Hymns and Songs were set to music by Orlando 
Gibbons, one of the most distinguished musicians of his 
time, and many of whose compositions, particularly the 
Hosanna, are still extant in the Cathedral books. The 
tunes to which he adapted Withers Hymns are described 
by Sir John Hawkins as melodies in two parts, and 
excellent in their kindf. Gibbons died about two years 

* The Hymns were approved by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and 
Wither declared, with exultation, that in the Spiritual Songs the learned 
prelate only required the alteration of one word. 

f History of Music, vol. iv., p. 35. 

i 2 



116 GEORGE WITHER. 

after the publication of the Hymns, in his 45 th year, 
and was buried in the Cathedral of Canterbury. 

Wither was a spectator of the plague which desolated 
the metropolis in 1625, and thirty-six years afterwards 
he declared, that he did " in affection thereunto make 
here his voluntary residence, when hundreds of thousands 
forsook their habitations, that if God spared his life 
during that mortality, he might be a remembrancer both 
to this city and the whole nation*." The results of his 
melancholy experience he afterwards embodied in Britain s 
Remembrancer. The history of this singular poem fur- 
nishes another proof of the indomitable perseverance of 
his character. " It is above two years," he tells us, " since 
I laboured to get this book printed, and it hath cost me 
more labour, more money, more pains, and much more 
time to publish, than to compose it ; for I was fain to 
imprint every sheet thereof with my own hand, because 
I could not get allowance to do it publicly f." The 
printers were naturally unwilling to become c remem- 
brancers in this kind f almost every page contained 
enough objectionable matter to send them to Newgate. 

* Crums and Scraps lately found in a Prisoner's Basket at Newgate, 
by Geo. Wither, 1661. Wither's example was followed, in 1665, by 
Thomas Vincent, a minister of the Gospel, who remained in London 
during the plague, with the express object of keeping alive in himself and 
others the memory of the Judgment. See God's Terrible Voice to the 
City, by T. V., 1667. 

t Ben Jonson, in Time Vindicated, has satirized the custom, then very 
prevalent among the pamphleteers of the day, of providing themselves 
with a portable press, which they moved from one hiding-place to 
another with great facility. He insinuates that Chronomastix, under 
whom he intended to represent Wither, employed one of these presses. 
Thus, upon the entrance of the Mutes. 
Fame. What are this pair } 
Eyes. The ragged rascals 1 
Fame. Yes. 

Eyes. These rogues ; you'd think them rogues, 
But they are friends : 
One is his printer in disguise, and keeps 
His press in a hollow tree. 



GEORGE WITHER. 11/ 

The plague first broke out in the house of a French- 
man, rt without the Bishop-gate," and Wither describes 
with considerable animation the general consternation 
that ensued upon the dreadful discovery, and the mul- 
titude of remedies and preventives proposed. The streets 
were carefully cleansed, and all kinds of herbs and per- 
fumes, " pure frankincense or myrrh," or in the absence of 
these, pitch, rosin, tar, &c, were burnt to purify the 
air *. Then arose the race of empirics : one had " a per- 
fume of special note 5" another, an antidote which had 
been applied with the greatest success at Constantinople, 
when a thousand persons died daily. Instructions, 
equally ineffectual, were also published by authority. 
The contagion or non- contagion of the plague, was also 
a favourite subject of discussion. Wither is a decided 
advocate of non- contagion, and his arguments are sup- 
ported by the fact that very few sextons or surgeons 
died 3 that among the market-people who brought pro- 
visions into the city, he did not hear of any deaths, and 
that in the parish where he resided, and in which the 
mortality amounted to nearly " half a thousand" weekly, 
not one of the common bearers of the dead fell a victim 
to the pestilence. Wither was at this time living by 
" Thames' fair bank," probably in the Savoy, which ap- 
pears to have been a favourite situation with him. 

The plague, which at first spread slowly, soon rushed 
out with terrible fury, in spite of the " halberds and 
watches." But the steps of the destroyer were wrapt in 

* In An Advice set down by the most learned in Physic within this 
Realm, annexed to Orders of the Privy Council, in 1625, was the follow- 
ing recipe for correcting the air in houses. " Take rosemary dried, or 
juniper, bay-leaves or Frankincense, cast the same into a chafing-dish, 
and receive the fume or smoke thereof." 

Many persons wore round their necks amulets made of arsenic, which 
they esteemed an infallible prophylactic. 



118 GEORGE WITHER. 

mystery, no man could ^ell his going out or coming in ; 
people looked with terror and dismay upon each other. 

Men were fearful grown 

To tarry or converse among their own. 
Friends lied each other ; kinsmen stood aloof; 
The son to come within his father's roof 
Presumed not ; the mother was constrain d 
To let her child depart unentertam d. 

Britain's Remembrancer, canto 2. 

In the midst of the general confusion and flight of the 
inhabitants, we learn that the Lord Mayor, uninfluenced 
by the desertion of his brother magistrates, remained at 
his post, and devoted himself to the heavy duties that 
devolved upon him. On the 21st of June, a general fast 
was agreed to by the House of Commons ; and, on the 
11th of July, Parliament adjourned from Westminster, 
and met at Oxford on the 1st of August. Wither, mean- 
while, having " thrown his own affairs aside," employed 
himself in walking about the city. 

But far I needed not to pace about, 
Nor long inquire to find such objects out; 
For every place with sorrows then abounded, 
And every way the cries of mourning sounded. 
Yea, day by day, successively till night, 
And from the evening till the morning light 
Were scenes of grief with strange variety, 
Knit up in one continuing tragedy. 
No sooner waked I, but twice twenty knells, 
And many sadly-sounding passing bells 
Did greet mine ear, and by their heavy tolls, 
To me gave notice — that some early souls 
Departed whilst I slept ; that others — some 
Were drawing onward to their longest home. 

So long the solitary nights did last, 
That I had leisure my accounts to cast. 



GEORGE WITHER. 119 

And think upon, and over-think those things, 

Which darkness, loneliness, and sorrow brings. 

My chamber entertained me all alone, 

And in the rooms adjoining lodged none. 

Yet through the darksome silent night did fly 

Sometime an uncouth noise, sometime a cry, 

And sometimes mournful callings pierced my room, 

Which came I neither knew from whence, nor whom. 

And oft betwixt awaking and asleep, 

Their voices, who did talk, or pray, or weep, 

Unto my listening ears a passage found, 

And troubled me by their uncertain sound, 

Glad was I when I saw the sun appear, 
(And with his rays to bless our hemisphere) 
That from the tumbled bed I might arise, 
And with some lightsomeness refresh mine eyes ; 
Or with some good companions read or pray, 
To pass the better my sad thoughts away. 

The poet then describes the deserted appearance of 
London, as he beheld it in his walks : ' ' much-peopled 
Westminster" was almost entirely forsaken, and White- 
hall, which, not three months before, had been the scene 
of festivity and courtly merriment, now lay solitary. 

As doth a quite forsaken monastery, 

In some lone forest, and we could not pass 

To many places, but thro' weeds and grass. 

The Strand, then the residence of the most powerful 
and wealthy of the nobility, where Wither had often 
seen " well nigh a million passing in one day," had 
nearly become an unfrequented road; no smoke from 
the "city houses" told of hospitality and mirth. The 
Inns of Court were deserted; the " Royal Change," the 
great mart for all nations, was avoided as " a place of 
certain danger," and the Cathedral of St. Paul's had 



120 GEORGE WITHER. 

"scarce a walker in its middle aisle*." The houses, 
too, looked uninhabited 5 no ladies in their "bravery and 
beauty/' 

To their closed wickets made repair, 
The empty casements gaped wide for air. 

A more perfect picture of sorrow and desolation could 
scarcely be conveyed than in this line. Disease brought 
its companion, poverty -, numbers wandered about the 
streets in miserable destitution. Wither relates an affect- 
ing instance. Wandering forth on his customary walk 
one evening, 

When the waning light 
Was that which could be called nor day nor night. 

he met with one who on him " cast a ruthful eye." 

Methought I heard him somewhat softly say, 

As if that he for some relief did pray. 

He bashfully replied, that indeed 

He was ashamed to speak aloud what need 

Did make him softly mutter. Somewhat more 

He would have spoken, but his tongue forbore 

To tell the rest, because his eyes did see 

Their tears had almost drawn forth tears from me, 

And that my hand was ready to bestow 

That help which my poor fortunes did allow. — Canto 4. 

If, oppressed with the loneliness and mourning of the 

* The aisles of St. Paul's were very generally frequented by the idle 
and inquisitive ; allusions to this custom abound in our older poets. In 
the Mastive, &c, written about the year 1604-5, it is asked, 

Who's yond' marching hither 1 

Some brave low-country Captain, with his feather 
And high-crown'd hat: see, into Paul's he goes, 
To show his doublet and Italian hose. 
In Jonson's Every Man in his Humour, the celebrated Captain Boba- 
dill is " a Paul's man ;" and in Every Man out of his Humour , the first 
scene of the third Act is laid in the middle aisle of St. Paul's. — See 
GifFord's edition of the works of Ben Jonson 3 and Reed's Old Plays, 
vol. vii, p. 136. 



GEORGE WITHER. 121 

town, he wandered into the fields, the scene was scarcely 

less painful : — 

About the fields ran one, who being fled, 

In spite of his attendants, from his bed, 

This way a stranger by his host expelld, 

That way a servant, shut from where he dwell 1 d, 

Came weakly staggering forth (and crush'd beneath 

Diseases and unkindness) sought for death, 

Which soon was found. Canto 4. 

It was natural that the poet should contrast with the 
present melancholy, the cheerfulness of past summers* 
when the dash of the oar kept time with the music upon 
the crowded river, and " Islington and Tottenham -court" 
were visited by pleasure- parties for their " cakes and 
cream *." 

Among the most terrible symptoms of the plague was 
the insanity that sometimes accompanied it. A painful 
instance occurred in the house where Wither resided. 
" A plague -sick man," under the influence of this de- 
lirium, believing that Death had assumed a dreadful and 
loathsome shape, besought those around, with most 
piteous cries, to draw the curtains ; and, having "rested 
awhile," he started from the bed, and running to the 
couch on which his wife lay, thre^v himself upon his 
knees, and 

Both his hands uprearing, 
As if his eye had seen pale Death appearing, 
To strike his wife, 

entreated him to spare herf. 

* During the reign of James the First and Charles the First, Islington 
was a favourite resort, on account of its rich dairies. In that part of the 
manor of Highbury at the lower end of Islington, there were, in 1611, 
eight inns, principally supported by summer visiters. — See Kelson's 
History of Islington, p. 38, 4to., 1811. 

t Cases of sudden death from the plague sometimes occurred. Mr. 
Joseph Mead, writing to Sir Martin Stuteville, July 2d, says, "lam 



122 GEORGE WITHER. 






But it was not until after many weeks, when Wither 
had gone out in the morning and returned in the even- 
ing in safety, that it pleased God to send his " dreadful 
messenger" to the poet's dwelling. The pestilence at- 
tacked the occupants with so much violence as quickly 
to destroy five, and leave " another wounded." Wither 
now began to feel all the terrors of doubting faith and 
superstitious alarm. He grew weaker every day, but 
communicated his sufferings or apprehensions to no 
man. After having passed a sleepless night, he awoke 
one morning with the round ruddy spots, the fatal signs 
of infection, upon his breast and shoulders, but the 
mercy of the Almighty, in whom he had put his trust, 
brought him out of this great danger. The ominous 
spots, however, continued for some time upon his body. 

The plague having now attained its height, began to 
decline 5 the, number of deaths diminished daily, and 
before the winter was ended, the citizens had returned 
to their homes, and 

Another brood 
Soon fill'd the houses which unpeopled stood. — Canto 5. 

John Fletcher, the dramatic poet, perished in this 
pestilence. He had been invited to accompany a gen- 
tleman, "of Norfolk or Suffolk," into the country, and 
only remained in London while a suit of clothes was 
being made j but before it was completed, he fell sick of 
the plague, and died. We are indebted for this anecdote 
to Aubrey, who had it from Fletcher's tailor. I may 

told that my Lord Russel being to go to Parliament, had his shoe-maker 
to pull on his boots, who fell down dead of the plague in his presence. 
Whereupon he abstains from that honourable Assembly, and hath sent 
the Lords notice of this accident." — Ellis's Original Letters, vol. hi. 
p. 205. 



GEORGE WITHER. 123 

add the name of Thomas Lodge, who is supposed to 
have been removed by the same calamity. He was a 
physician in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and Philips, 
in the Theatrum Poetarum, calls him " one of the writers 
of those pretty old songs and madrigals which were 
very much the strain of those times." Lodge, perhaps, 
deserves higher praise. A sweet and serious vein of 
feeling runs through some of his poems, particularly 
Old Damon s Pastoral. 

It is impossible to contemplate the conduct of Wither 
during this season of grief and suffering without a feeling 
of admiration and respect. Beneath the power of a 
frightful pestilence, human life was poured out like 
water. The strength of youth, to use the noble lan- 
guage of Quarks*, was no privilege against it, the 
soundness of a constitution was no exemption from it : 
the sovereignty of drugs could not resist it ; where it 
listed it wounded, and where it wounded it destroyed. 
The rich man's coffers could not bribe it 5 the skilful 
artist could not prevail against it 5 the black magician 
could not charm it. In the midst of all these perils the 
Christian poet dwelt serene and undisturbed- through- 
out the continuance of the plague he never removed 
from the centre of infection, "the distance of a mile." 
Yet the arrow new harmlessly past him by day, the terror 
did not strike him in the night. He knew that an arm 
was around him which never wearied, and an eye watch- 
ing over him which never slumbered or slept. The pas- 
sages quoted from Britain s Remembrancer contain some 
vivid sketches of the city of the plague. We behold the 
poet wandering forth in the uncertain twilight among 
the forsaken walks of the city, and almost hear, so na- 

* Prayers and Meditations, 



124 GEORGE WITHER. 

turally does he bring the scene before us, the heavy fall 
of his lingering footsteps along the grass-grown streets, 
and the creaking of the shutters of some deserted house 
as they moved to and fro in the midnight wind. Many 
affecting stories might be added to those already given. 
The picture of the anxious wife listening to every sound 
during the absence of her husband, and starting up in 
terror if any one "knocked or called in haste," is a copy 
from nature. 

After the publication of Britain s Remembrancer, we lose 
sight of Wither until 1631, when we find him assisting 
the Rev. William Bedwell in the publication of the 
Tournament of Tottenham. Warton, who in his History of 
Poetry particularly mentions this old poem, has omitted 
to state that it was published from a MS. communicated 
by Wither- but Bedwell, in the epistle to the reader, 
confesses the obligation. " It is now," he says, "seven 
or eight years since I came to the sight of the copy, and 
that by the means of the worthy and my much honoured 
good friend, Mr. Ge. Wither; of whom also, now at 
length I have obtained the use of the same : and because 
the verse was then by him, a man of exquisite judgment 
in this kind of learning, much commended, * * * 
as also for the thing itself, I thought it worth the while, 
especially at idle times, to transcribe it, and for the 
honour of the place to make it public." 

This was written in the March of 1 63 1 . Bedwell was 
the Rector of Tottenham, to which he had been presented 
by Bishop Andrews, whom he calls his honourable good 
Lord and Patron*. He was also one of the translators 
of the Bible, and an able Oriental scholar. 

He bequeathed some valuable Arabic MSS. to the 

* In the dedication of the Katendarium Viaiorium Generale, 1614. 



GEORGE WITHER. 125 

University of Cambridge, illustrated by numerous origi- 
nal notes, together with a set of types to print them*. 
Of the Tournament, which seems to have been a serio- 
comic satire upon the chivalrous follies of the 14th cen- 
tury, Warton has given a sufficient specimen. 

About this time, according to John Taylor, Wither 
was steward to Dr. Howson, Bishop of Durham, and 
the Water-poet, who, after Withers secession from the 
King's cause, never ceased to regard him with great 
displeasure, accuses him of having applied to his own 
purposes the funds of that Prelate f. I have not been 
able to discover the slightest allusion to this circum- 
stance in any other writer, nor does Wither any where 
refer to the connexion. The story altogether is highly 
improbable, and unworthy of credit. Dr. Howson only 
enjoyed the See of Durham from September 28th, 1628, 
to February 6th, 1631-2, and his steward, therefore, 
whoever he was, did not long reap the benefit of his 
malpractices. 

At length, remembering that he had long since vowed 
a pilgrimage to the Queen of Bohemia as soon as he had 
a present worthy of her acceptance, Wither set out for 
Holland with his version of the Psalms, in his ' ' own 
esteem the best jewel" he possessed. This unfortunate 
Princess, whose talents and virtues were not more fitted 
to adorn prosperity, than to cheer and alleviate the sor- 
rows of an adverse fortune, was then seeking to dispel 

* Smith's MSS., quoted in Dyer's History of the University of 
Cambridge. 

t To Durham's reverend Bishop thou wast cater, 
Or steward, where to make thy 'compts seem clear, 
Thou mad'st two months of July in one year ; 
And in the total reck'ning it was found, 
Thou cheat'st the Bishop of five hundred pound. 

Aqua-Musa, p. 5, 1644. 



126 GEORGE WITHER. 

the gloom of her situation by the amusements of her 
garden and her books. Holland, in the earlier part of 
the 1 7th* century, abounded in learning, and the seques- 
tered court of Elizabeth made up in brilliancy of intellect 
what it wanted in splendour of outward circumstances. 
Among its principal luminaries were Gerard Vorst, the 
painter j the illustrious Descartes, who, weary of his 
voluntary banishment at Amsterdam, had taken up his 
residence in the village of Egmond, from whence he 
made frequent visits to the Queen, to whose eldest 
daughter, Elizabeth, he dedicated his Principia Philoso- 
phies ,• and Anna Schurman, "the gem of Utrecht," a 
poet, a sculptor, an engraver, and a linguist. 

Wither, in his praise of the Queen, only spoke the 
sentiments of all who knew her -, and when he said that 
she " had conquered a kingdom in the hearts of many 
millions of people," he probably remembered the appel- 
lation of " Queen of Hearts," which the affection of those 
among whom she lived had bestowed upon her. But 
his gratitude led him too far; the parallel between the 
misfortunes of the Queen and those of the Psalmist, 
might have been omitted with advantage. 

His translation was printed in the Netherlands in 
1632, in a very neat form. The merits of the work 
scarcely bear a just proportion to the toil expended on 
it. The diction is generally clear and simple, and the 
versification varied and harmonious, yet it can only be 
viewed as a moderate improvement upon preceding 
efforts. The most gifted labourer in this Sacred Vine- 
yard can only hope for qualified success, and the highest 
meed in the power of the critic to award, seems to be 
the praise of having done best what no one can do well *. 

* Johnson. 



GEORGE WITHER. 127 

Sidney, Spenser, and Milton, have each adventured in 
this difficult path. The Psalms of Spenser are lost: 
those of Sidney contain some sweet lines ; while the speci- 
mens given by Milton are only worthy of Hopkins. 

Wither obtained for his Psalms a patent, conferring on 
him the privilege of having them bound up with all 
Bibles -, but this his old enemies, the stationers, refused to 
do, and the poet complained to the Board of their con- 
tempt of the Great Seal. 

The following extract from a MS. letter*, supposed 
to be addressed by Edward Rossingham to Sir Thomas 
Puckering, on the 23rd of January, 1633, throws an 
interesting light on this subject. 

" Upon Friday last, Wither, the English poet, con- 
vented before the Board all or most of the stationers of 
London. The matter is this : Mr. Wither hath, to 
please himself, translated our singing psalms into 
another verse, which he counts better than those the 
Church hath so long used, and therefore he hath been 
at the charge to procure a patent from his Majesty 
under the Broad Seal, that his translation shall be 
printed and bound to all Bibles that are sold. The 
stationers refusing to bind them, and to sell them with 
the Bible, (the truth is, nobody would buy the Bible 
with such a clog at the end of it,) and because some of 
them stood upon their guard, and would not suffer Mr. 
Wither with his officers to come into their shops and 
seize upon such Bibles as wanted his additions, there- 
fore he complained of them for a contempt of the great 
seal. After their Lordships had heard the business pro 
and con. at length, their Lordships thought good to 

* In the British Museum, communicated by Mr. D 'Israeli to Sir 
Egerton Brydges. 

t 



128 GEORGE WITHER. 

damn his patent in part $ that is, that the translation 
should no longer be sold with the Bible, but only by 
itself." 

Wither's version was followed by Sandys's Paraphrase, 
in 1636, and the translation of Braithwait in 1638. 

Sandys had already established a reputation by his 
celebrated Travels, and the translation of Ovid's Meta- 
morphoses. In the beautiful poem Deo Opt. Max., he 
gratefully records his deliverance from <e the bloody 
massacres" of the faithless Indians, and returns his 
thanks to that merciful Providence by whom he had 
been brought home in safety, 

Blest with an healthful age, a quiet mind 
Content with little. 

" It did me good," says Richard Baxter*, " when Mrs. 
Wyat invited me to see Bexley Abbey, in Kent, to see 
upon the old stone wall in the garden a summer-house 
with this inscription, that In that place Mr. George 
Sandys, after his travels over the world, retired himself 
for his poetry and contemplations." Dr. Burney con- 
sidered Sandys's Paraphrase superior to any other trans- 
lation of the Psalms, and his wanderings over the Holy 
Land certainly contributed to impart a religious enthu- 
siasm to his amiable and poetic mind. He excels in 
the variety and melody of his metre, and the simplicity 
and grace of the language. 

The version of Braithwait is only rendered valuable by 
its extreme rarity. It is not noticed either by Anthony 
Wood, Ellis, or Dr. Bliss. Braithwait was a warm ad- 
mirer of Wither f , and almost as voluminous an author. 

* Poetical Fragments, &c. 

t And long may England's Thespian springs be known 
By lovely Wither, and by bonny Brown. 
The poem from which these verses are quoted was printed in 1615. 



GEORGE WITHER. 129 

He was a person of considerable acquirement, and his 
translation professes to be " conferred with the Hebrew 
veritie set forth by Arias Montanus, together with the 
Latin, Greek Septuagint, and Chaldee paraphrase." 
Perhaps, as Bliss said of Wyat, he had too much learn- 
ing for a poet -, his Psalms are written, with few excep- 
tions, in a dull monotonous uniformity of measure, and 
with no elegance of manner. 

It is probable that Wither did not continue long in 
Holland, but the publication of his Emblems, in 1634, 
may have been promoted by his residence in that 
country. 

A history of Emblems in all languages, with speci- 
mens of the poetry and engravings, accompanied by 
some account of the authors, would be a very interesting 
contribution to our literature * ; but in the present day, 
a work of so much labour and difficulty will not soon 
be undertaken. My own limited course of reading has 
made me acquainted with only a few of the Emblem - 
writers preceding Wither. Of these, the first, both in 
time and reputation, is Alciatus, whose life was an 
unvaried scene of prosperity and flattery. Francis the 
First patronized him 3 Pope Paul the Third appointed 
him Prothonotary 5 and the King of Spain presented 
him with a gold chain of considerable value. He was a 
scholar, a miser, and a glutton ; and to the indulgence 
of his festive appetites his death has been attributed. 
The Emblems rapidly obtained a wide popularity. They 
were translated into French verse, by Jean de Fevre, in 
1536 5 by Barthelemi Aneau, a lawyer and poet, in 1549 : 
and by Claude Mignaut, in 1584. They were also soon 

* Some learned remarks upon Emblems may be seen in the edition of 
the Kmblemata of Alciatus, Elucidata Doctissimis Claudii Minoii Com- 
mentariis. — Lugd., 1614. 

K 



130 GEORGE WITHER. 

rendered into Italian and Spanish. Their poetical merit 
is small, although Scaliger considered them graceful 
and elegant, without being weak. 

The sixteenth century abounded in Emblems. The 
Emblemata of Sambucus were published in 1564 ^ they 
are not remarkable for any elegance or purity of Latinity, 
but the cause of classical literature was materially as- 
sisted by their indefatigable and eccentric author. In 
1581, appeared the Emblemata of Reusner, edited by his 
brother Jeremiah. Reusner's voluminous labours are 
now forgotten even in Germany • but the book of Emble- 
mata Sacra is valuable on account of the exquisite wood- 
cuts by Virgil Solis, the engraver of Nuremberg, and 
marked by all the minute delicacy of that artist's man- 
ner. Solis also contributed, in the same year, a set of 
cuts for the Emblems of Alciatus. 

Theodore Beza, the " Phcenix of his age," should not 
be forgotten 5 his Emblemata were printed among the 
Poemata Varia, in 1597. The Emblems of Lebeus Batil- 
lius had issued from Frankfort in the preceding year. 

Holland would furnish many interesting specimens 
for our proposed collection. The celebrated Jacob Cats, 
who has been called the La Fontaine of his country, 
published his Emblems in 1618, in Dutch, French, and 
Latin. Dr. Bowring, in the Batavian Anthology, has 
afforded the uninitiated reader an opportunity of appre» 
ciating the merits of this excellent and Christian writer. 
Bowring's specimens, however, are not taken from the 
Emblems, which are most attractive, it may be observed, 
in their Roman dress. It would be superfluous to praise 
the Latinity of a country which has given birth to an 
Erasmus and a Grotius. 

I believe there are several collections of Emblems in 



GEORGE WITHER. 131 

French. I have only met with two, Les Devises Hero'iques, 
by Claude Paradin and others, written in prose, and some 
emblems by Georgetta Montenay, of which I have seen 
a translation, published at Frankfort in 1619*. 

Geoffrey Whitney occupies the first place among 
English Emblem- writers. Whitney resided many years 
on the Continent, and published, at Leyden, a second 
edition of his Emblems in 1586 f. The rarity of this 
edition precludes any hope of discovering the first. In 
his dedication to the Earl of Leicester, he dwells upon 
his " lack of leisure and learning," but permits no oppor- 
tunity to escape of showing the latter 3 and if the Earl 
did not close the book with a very exalted idea of the 
dignity of poets, it was not owing to Whitney's modesty 
in asserting it. The Emblems are not destitute of a 
certain graceful and touching simplicity. His imitation 
of the 154th Emblem of Alciatus, is one of the most 
pleasing specimens of his style. 

Henry Peacham's Garden ofHeroical Devises, published 
in 1612, is equally simple. Peacham's character may be 
summed up in a few words. He was a scholar, a poet, 
and a beggar. The most interesting account of his 

* Among the MS. books in the King's Library is a volume containing 
fifty Emblems, Cinquante Emhlemes Chrestiens preincrement inventez 
par la noble Demoiselle Georgette de Montenay, and transcribed par la 
main et plume of Esther Inglis. The MS. is dated from Scotland, in 
1624, and dedicated to Williams, then Bishop of Lincoln. It is beauti- 
fully written and illustrated, and sumptuously bound in crimson silk 
embroidered with gold. The fifty Emblems are inscribed to fifty of the 
most illustrious nobility of the age, including the Earls of Southampton, 
Pembroke, &c. It is only fair to add, that the flattery does not extend 
beyond the inscription, each Emblem being devoted to the illustration 
of some religious truth. 

t A writer in the Retrospective Review, vol. 9, committed a mistake in 
supposing this to be the first edition. Whitney declares the contrary in 
his preface. " And also I have written some of the Emblems to certain 
of my friends, * * * which both were wanting in my first edition, 
and are now added hereunto." 

K 2 



132 GEORGE WITHER. 

writings and misfortunes has been given in the Harleian 
Miscellany. 

To return to Wither. The origin of the work is thus 
related in the preface: — "These Emblems, graven in 
copper, by Crispinus Passoeus (with a motto in Greek, 
Latin, or Italian, round about every figure, and with 
two lines or verses in one of the same languages para- 
phrasing those mottoes), came into my hands almost 
twenty years past. The verses were so mean that they 
were afterwards cut off from the plates ; yet the work- 
manship being judged very good for the most part, and 
the rest excusable, some of my friends were so much 
delighted in the graver's art, and in those illustrations 
which, for my own pleasure, I had made upon some few 
of them, that they requested me to moralize the rest, 
which I condescended unto, and they had been brought to 
view many years ago, but that the copper-prints (which 
are now gotten) could not be procured out of Holland 
upon any reasonable terms." 

These prints, in their original state, as published by 
John Janson, at Arnheim, are said to have possessed 
considerable merit*. The illustrations alluded to by 
Wither were written by Gabriel Rollenhagius, in Latin 
verse, and are often incorrect : in one place et is made 
long before hostes, an error in prosody not very credit- 
able to a gentleman in his 27th year. 

The Emblems are dedicated to Charles the First and 
his Queen, in a strain of flattery and adulation. The 
writer's reflections could not have been very agreeable 
if, in after-times, he cast his eyes over this "Epistle 
Dedicatory," in which he celebrates the virtues of the 

* Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature, vol. 2, p. 246. 



GEORGE WITHER. 133 

monarch, the wealth and tranquillity of the people, and 
prophesied 

A chaste, a pious, and a prosperous age. 

Throughout the Emblems, Wither shows himself a 
warm and steady supporter of the Monarchy and the 
Church. In the fifteenth illustration of the second 
book, he ridicules the puritanical sanctity of the times, 
and inveighs against those who fancied that they brought 
sincere "oblations to God," when they "roared out 
imprecations" against all whom they esteemed wicked, 
and others who sought to obtain their requests, 

By praying long, and repetitions vain*. 

And underneath the picture of the Crown and Sceptre 
he wrote, 

Grant, Lord, these isles for ever may be blest 
With what in this our emblem is exprest. 

He alludes to the gathering of sectarian dissatisfac- 
tion, but it is only to pray that the goodness and 
patience of the Sovereign may, by the grace of God, 
"make up a blessed concord." Then, indeed, the poet 
could return thanks to heaven, that while his fathers 
had been obliged to worship " in private and obscured 
rooms," he lived in an age when the " sounds of glad- 
ness" were heard every day in "the goodly temples." 
And when, with something of true prophetic vision, he 
declared that men were already beginning to wantonize 

* And in the 25th illustration of the first book, when speaking of true 
devotion,— 

Xor is it up and down the land to seek, 
To find those well-breath'd lecturers that can 
Preach thrice a Sabbath, and six times a week, 
Yet be as fresh as when they first began. 
The reader may, perhaps, remember the eloquent South's invective 
against " the copious flow and cant" of the fanatics. 



134 GEORGE WITHER. 

(a most happy expression) in matters of religion, and 
let " that loathing in" which made the manna tasteless $ 
even then he could entreat the Almighty to prolong 
his mercy, and to watch over the fruit in the vineyard, 
that the Light of Grace might not be displaced from 
"the Golden Candlestick." He was still a frequenter 
of the Church, and an humble follower of her ordinances. 
How melancholy a change was to be wrought in a few 
years ! In 1646 he discovered that all the misery of 
the country had been produced by the Church, that she 
was the source of all the " late troubles," that her 
" avarice and pride " first divided the island, and that 
from her 

At first the firebrands came 

That set this empire in a flame*. 

The poet was now reduced to considerable poverty +. 
The Hymns and Songs of the Church, far from enriching 
his estate, had impoverished it considerably more than 
three hundred pounds, and " impartial death and wast- 
ing time," he complained, had removed those friends 
from whom he might have asked a favour with a cer- 
tainty of obtaining it. He might well turn over, with a 
sad and desolate heart, the leaves of the Thankful 
Register, in which were recorded the names of his 
noble patrons. Among them death had, indeed, been 
busy. The Duke of Richmond J 5 the father of Henry 
Earl of Holland, who, as the poet gratefully remembered, 
had sought him out in poverty and obscurity to protect 

* What Peace for the Wicked. 

f The allusion to the fallen fortunes of his family is not without dignity : 
I never yet did murmuringly complain. 
Although those moons have long been on the wane, 
Which on their silver shields my elders wore, 
In battles, and in triumphs heretofore. — Illust. 48, book 3. 

t Uncle of James Duke of Lennox. 



GEORGE WITHER. 135 

and succour him -, William, the accomplished and 
generous Earl of Pembroke, and many more, had gra- 
dually fallen away from his side. Sorrow, if not always 
the mother of virtue, is frequently its nurse 5 and the 
loss of his friends probably contributed to impart the 
contemplative and melancholy spirit which pervades the 
Emblems. Many specimens might be selected, beauti- 
fully descriptive of the calm and religious sentiments of 
the writer ; but the following extract from the 35 th 
illustration of the Second Book is the only one to which 
I can afford insertion. The Emblem represents a flame 
upon a mountain, driven to and fro by the tempestuous 
and angry winds, yet continually gathering strength 
and brightness, in spite of every opposition. 

Thus fares the man whom Virtue, beacon-like 
Hath fix'd upon the hills of eminence ; 
At him the tempests of mad Envy strike, 
And rage against his piles of innocence. 
But still the more they wrong him, and the more 
They seek to keep his worth from being known, 
They daily make it greater than before, 
And cause his fame the further to be blown. 
When, therefore, no self-doting arrogance 
But virtues, covered with a modest veil, 
Break through obscurity, and thee advance 
To place where Envy shall thy worth assail, 
Discourage not thyself, but stand the shocks 
Of Wrath and Fury. Let them snarl and bite, 
Pursue thee with detraction, slander, mocks, 
And all the venom'd engines of despight. — 
Thou art above their malice, and the blaze 
Of thy celestial fire shall shine so clear, 
That their besotted souls thou shalt amaze, 
And make thy splendours to their shame appear. 

How many hundred times has the thought in this 



136 GEORGE WITHER. 

poem been expressed by later writers, and by which of 
the number has it been uttered with equal majesty ! 

We may say of the Emblems generally, that they 
form a very pleasant and interesting work, at once 
instructive and entertaining. Wither always despised 
those " verbal conceits which serve to little other pur- 
pose but for witty men to show tricks one to another," 
but he never for a moment desired to banish out of the 
world all elegancies of speech, though not in themselves 
useful 3 for that he considered " as absurd as to root 
out all herbs unfit to make pottage, or to destroy all 
flowers less beautiful than the tulip, or less sweet than 
the rose." With a hope of blending amusement with 
graver thoughts, he also disposed the Emblems into 
Lotteries *. 

Appended to the volume is a " Supersedeas " to all 
"them whose custom it is, without any deserving, to 
importune authors to give unto them their books." The 
poet complains of having been a considerable sufferer 
from persons of this description, who no sooner saw a 
book in his possession, than they thought themselves 
entitled to " ask and take." In this way he had already 
lost "nearly five hundred crowns," and he declares his 
determination to give no more books for the future to 
any but his intimate friends, unless those individuals, 
who were so anxious to obtain them gratuitously, would 
allow him to inspect their property, and "ask and take" 
in a similar manner. It is not likely, after this hint, 
that he experienced any more annoyances. 

Soon after the publication of the Emblems, Wither 

* He did this, however, not so much to satisfy his own judgment, as to 
advance the profit of the stationers,, who had ventured a considerable 
sum of money upon the " many costly sculptures." 



GEORGE WITHER. 137 

seems to have settled himself near Farnham in Surrey, 
in a (i cottage under the Beacon- Hill." But though he 
confined himself to his " rustic habitation in that part 
of the kingdom which is famous for the best of those 
meats wherewith the poet Martial invited his friends*/' 
he did not forget " the delicates of the Muses/' and on 
the 23rd of May, L636, he dedicated to the celebrated 
Selden a translation of Nemesius' Treatise upon the 
Nature of Man. Wither had long loved the person, and 
honoured the worth, of his " noble friend," and grate- 
fully remembered the great scholar's early attentions. 
" You have not," he says, in the epistle, "been precious 
to me without a cause 3 for I, being one of those who pre- 
posterously begin to write before they learn, you might 
justly enough have reputed me worthy of contempt only, 
when I was first presented to your acquaintance. 
Nevertheless, (perceiving, it may be, that the affections 
of my heart were sound, though the fruits of my brain 
were defective,) you vouchsafed me a friendly and a 
frequent familiarity ; whereby I got opportunities both 
to rectify my judgment, and increase my understanding 
in many things." 

Of the acquaintance of Selden, the most learned lin- 
guist and antiquarian of the age, Wither might well be 
proud. Selden's intimate friendship and kindly sym- 
pathy towards the poets of the day, are beautiful traits 
in his character. He had a heart equally open to the 
pastoral sweetness of William Browne, and the learned 
visions of Ben Jonson, as to the more dear and familiar 
studies of Spelman, of Camden, and of Cotton. He did 
not realize the observation of Livy, that by long meditation 
upon antiquity the mind itself becomes antique. Lord 

* Pallens faba, cum rubenti lardo. 



138 GEORGE WITHER. # 

Clarendon, in this case no partial witness, said that " his 
humanity, courtesy, and affability, were such that he 
would have been thought to have been bred in the best 
Courts." Selden was also something of a rhymer, and 
Sir John Suckling introduced him in the Session of the 
Poets, but his metrical talents were chiefly employed in 
recommending the works of his friends. From so nu- 
merous a body of associates he must have experienced fre- 
quent interruption 5 and Aubrey informs us that he had 
a slight stuff, or silk kind of false carpet, to cast over 
the table where his papers lay when a stranger came in, 
so that he " needed not to displace his books or papers." 

Withers version was not made from the original, but 
from the Latin translations of N. Ellebodius and G. 
Valla, and though not strictly literal, embodies the sense 
of the author with considerable force and perspicuity. 

The treatise Ylepi Qvaeios kvOpuirs (Of the Nature of 
Man) is styled by Brucker, with some exaggeration, one 
of the most elegant specimens of the philosophy of the 
primitive Christians. Respecting Nemesius himself, 
considerable difficulty exists -, but that he flourished in 
the age of Nazianzen is probable, because he dwells par- 
ticularly upon the Schismatics who then agitated the 
Church, the Manichees, the Apollinarists, and the 
Eunomians, and cites only those writers who lived 
before the termination of the fourth century. From 
the style and manner of the book we are also assured 
that its author belonged to the period when the expiring 
Ethnic Philosophy put forth her still powerful, though 
weakened, efforts, under the guidance of Iamblichus, Plo- 
tinus, and Porphyry $ efforts nobly repelled by Athanasius, 
Basil, and Nazianzen*. 
* See Preface to the Oxford edition of the li^i $vffiu$ Av0g&><rv, &e. 



GEORGE WITHER. 139 

Our poet's restlessness would not permit him to be- 
come a "mere Cory don." In 1639 he was Captain of 
Horse in the expedition against the Scots, and Quarter- 
Master of his regiment under the Earl of Arundel. His 
patron, Robert, Earl of Essex, was Lieutenant- General 
of Infantry in the same army. The troops were, how- 
ever, soon disbanded, and the poet returned for another 
season to more peaceful and congenial occupations. 

In 1641 appeared the Haleluiah, or Britain s Second 
Remembrancer, a collection of Sacred Poems composed, 
we are told by the author, " in a three-fold volume." 
The first containing "hymns occasional 5 the second, 
hymns temporary 5 the third, hymns personal." This 
book, now as scarce as the first Remembrancer is com- 
mon, I have not seen ; but copious extracts have been 
given from it, by Wither himself, in the Fragment a Pro- 
plietica; by Sir Egerton Brydges, in the Censur a Liter aria ,• 
and by Mr. Dalrymple, in his selections from the Juvenilia. 
The enthusiastic terms in which the latter gentleman 
eulogizes the Haleluiah, are scarcely supported by the 
specimens adduced. The Hymns were originally written 
and collected with the praiseworthy object of making 
those " vain songs less delighted in," which were then 
becoming so numerous that pious meditations were 
" nigh quite out of fashion." But the " carnal profane - 
ness" of some, and the religious sullenness of others, 
rendered the poet's endeavours of little effect. He re- 
lates, however, one anecdote respecting them, too in- 
teresting to be omitted. One of his friends, highly ap- 
proving of the attempt, distributed 4 many copies of the 
collection at his own expense, and among others to a 
"person of quality" associated with the pleasures and 
fashion of the age. Though received at first with con- 



140 GEORGE WITHER. 

tempt, the work, as Wither subsequently understood, 
produced a most beneficial change in the feelings and 
life of the individual. 

The poet's devoted attachment to his own wife may 
have suggested the sentiments of the poem for Anniver- 
sary Marriage Days : — 

Lord, living here are we 

As fast united yet, 
As when our hands and hearts by Thee 

Together first were knit. 

And in a thankful song 

Now sing we will Thy praise, 
For that Thou dost as well prolong 

Our loving, as our days. 

The frowardness that springs 

From our corrupted kind, 
Or from those troublous outward things, 

Which may distract the mind ; 

Permit not Thou, O Lord, 

Our constant love to shake ; 
Or to disturb our true accord, 

Or make our hearts to ache. 

The 37th Hymn, part 3 — "For a Widower, or a 
Widow, deprived of a loving yoke-fellow," deserves 
to be quoted entire. The simple pathos of this stanza 
will be felt by every heart: — 

The voice which I did more esteem 

Than music in her sweetest key : 
Those eyes which unto me did seem 

More comfortable than the day : 

Those now by me, as they have been, 

Shall never more be heard or seen : 
But what I once enjoyed in them, 
Shall seem hereafter as a dream. 



GEORGE WITHER. 141 

"For an Anniversary Funeral Day/' and "An Occa- 
sional Hymn when we first awake in the Morning," 
are also very graceful and pleasing compositions. Pope, 
it is not improbable, had the following verses from the 
Sunday Hymn in his recollection when he composed 
his Universal Prayer : — 

Discretion grant me so to know 

What Sabbath-rites Thou dost require, 

And grace my duty so to do, 

That I may keep Thy law entire. 

Not doing what should not be done, 
Nor ought omitting fit to do. 

With the Haleluiah, the poetical life of Wither may 
be considered to have terminated. He ceased to gaze 
"on such sights as youthful poets dream/' and his re- 
maining years were worn out in petulant complaints, in 
penury, and in sorrow. He continued, indeed, to pour 
out his rhymes upon every occasion with a fertility age 
could not exhaust, and a perseverance no peril could re- 
strain 3 but the sweetness of his Shepherd's Pipe was lost 
for ever. Poetry tied from the discordant din of politics 
and fanaticism to "pitch her tent" in some more peace- 
ful spot 5 and if she ever revisited the scenes she had 
left, it was under a cloud, pervious only to the eyes of 
her few remaining followers. Gladly would I pass over 
this dreary period of our poet's history 3 a period of sur- 
passing grief and agony to many, of turbulence and dis- 
quiet to all. But it was Wither' s evil fortune to be 
actively engaged in the earlier part of the civil war, and 
the biographer is obliged to follow him through the sad 
narrative of that stormy epoch. 

Dr. Heylin, in his History of the Presbyterians, tells a 
story of Wither's conduct at this time, so indicative of 



142 GEORGE WITHER. 

profane and sacrilegious impiety, that I confess myself 
unable to give it credit. Heylin says, "that Martin, 
then member for Berks, having commanded the Sub- 
dean of Westminster to bring him to the place where 
the Regalia were kept, made himself master of the spoil $ 
and, having forced open a great iron chest, took out the 
crown, the robes, the swords, and sceptre, belonging 
anciently to King Edward the Confessor, and used by 
all our kings at their inaugurations, with a scorn greater 
than his lusts and the rest of his vices, he openly 
declares that there would be no further use of these 
toys and trifles, and in the folly of that humour 
invests George Withers (an old Puritan Satyrist) in 
the royal habiliments, who, being thus crowned and 
royally arrayed (as right well became him), first 
marched about the room with a stately garb, and after- 
wards, with a thousand apish and ridiculous actions, 
exposed these sacred ornaments to contempt and laugh- 
ter. Had the Abuse been Stript and Whipt, as it should 
have been, the foolish fellow might have passed for a 
prophet, though he could not be reckoned for a poet'*." 
Heylin, though an upright and bold-spirited man, 
was a most intemperate and prejudiced writer. Edu- 
cated under a zealous Puritan, Mr. Neubury, he was, 
nevertheless, a most intolerant enemy of the sect. The 
History of the Presbyterians, it should also be remem- 
bered, was written under circumstances tending to 
deepen every feeling of animosity. The destruction of 
his incomparable library, the loss of his preferment, and 
the untimely death of his friend and patron, Archbishop 
Laud, were sufficient to arouse all the bitterness of his 
nature. It is not impossible that during Heylin's resi- 

* Hist, of Presb. p. 452., ed. 1672. 



GEORGE WITHER. 143 

dence at his living at Arlesford, which was almost im- 
mediately adjoining the birth-place of Wither, some 
cause of dissension might have arisen between the poet 
and himself. 

The acquaintance of the profligate Harry Martin, as 
he was usually called, could confer no honour upon any 
man 5 yet even in his case, the injustice of party-spirit 
may have blinded the observer's eyes to the good qua- 
lities he really possessed. His character, as drawn by 
Aubrey, who says that he was " not at all covetous, 
humble, and always ready in the house to take the part 
of the oppressed," cannot be reconciled with the monster- 
form under which he is generally portrayed. 

Upon the first breaking out of the war, Wither is 
said, by Anthony Wood, to have sold his estate, and 
raised a regiment for the service of the Parliament. 
This account, which has been adopted by all subsequent 
writers, even including Brydges and Park, is at variance 
with the truth. Wither was rarely withheld from an ex- 
pression of his own deserts and sacrifices, and he says, 
in the Field Musings, when speaking of the cause of the 
Parliament, 

According to my fortune and my place, 
I therefore further d it. 

And again in the same page, 

Where I then lived, I was the first of those 
Who did contribute to my country's aid. — P. 5. 

If he had sold his estate, he would have taken care to 
inform the public of the circumstance. 

Having been appointed commander of the troop raised 
in his neighbourhood, Wither' s first employment was to 
march into Kent, in "order to secure the malisniants 



144 GEORGE WITHER. 

there from attempting any thing against the State." 
These are the words of a very violent and scurrilous 
pamphlet, in which the poet's military and private 
character is attacked with a bitterness of hostility suf- 
ficient to invalidate the writer's claim to truth or cor- 
rectness. Withers quarters were at Maidstone, and 
that he discharged his new duties with no small activity 
is proved by the following resolution from the Journal 
of the House of Commons, January 5, 1642. " Whereas 
the county of Kent hath advanced several sums of 
money upon the propositions, which they have sent to 
the Treasurers in Guildhall, London, and have this day 
also delivered in plate amounting to good value to the 
Treasurers aforesaid. It is this day ordered by the 
Commons House of Parliament, that three hundred and 
twenty-eight pounds six shillings be forthwith imprest 
by the said treasurers to the Committees of Kent, or 
any two of them, towards the payment of the arrears 
due to Captain Withers his troop, now residing in that 
county." 

During his sojourn in Kent, according to the libellous 
pamphleteer already noticed, Wither did not forget his 
farm in Surrey, and selected for his own use some " brave 
horses" from the property of the Royalists. This accusa- 
tion is in some measure corroborated by the testimony 
of another writer, professing to entertain an exalted 
opinion of the poet's " spiritual irradiations," but at the 
same time charging him with having executed some 
things in the county of Kent " beyond the sense" of the 
sentiments expressed in Britain s Remembrancer. In 
those days of mental fever, the best men must have fre- 
quently erred 3 and the stubborn, though honest poet, was 
not likely to be more immaculate than his companions. 



GEORGE WITHER. 145 

Wither did not continue many months in Kent. In 
October, 1642, he was appointed Governor of Farnham 
Castle, in Surrey, which had been recently occupied for 
the King by Sir John Denham. The military skill of 
the rival poets seems to have been equal, but Wither 
attempted to cast the odium resulting from his desertion 
of the place upon his employers, who neglected to supply 
him with the means of defence. Finding the popular 
feeling still against him, in the early spring of 1643 he 
put forth A Shield and Shaft against Detraction, and 
pronounced every person who accused him of acting in 
a manner derogatory to the character of a gentleman, 
" a fool, a coward, a villain, or all." During the civil 
war, hard words were dealt as freely as hard blows, and 
the poet was not singular in the energy of his style. 
We shall find a greater far, even Milton, indulging his 
anger in a similar strain. 

Wither, who, according to his own account, was the 
first in Surrey who had taken arms for the Parliament, 
was also the first who suffered in its behalf. His farm 
at Wanborough, a village about four miles from Guild- 
ford, was plundered by the royalists. Edward Browne, 
in his Pathetical Apology for Book-making , dated from 
London, in December, 1 642, says, " Captain George 
Wither hath my certificate, but I fear he is so perplexed 
because his house near Guildford, in Surry, was plun- 
dered by the king's cavaliers, that he can find no spare 
time to sign it." This event took place, it is probable, 
towards the beginning of January, 1642, for we discover 
from the Journals of the House of Commons that an order 
from the Committee of Safety for immediate payment to 
Wither of 328/. 6s. out of the coinage of plate, was 
issued, January 6, 1642. 

L 



146 GEORGE WITHER. 

He estimated his loss at 2000/., and several attesta- 
tions upon oath were laid before the Parliament verifying 
this statement. Few poets have possessed a dwelling so 
richly stored with provisions of every description. He 
enumerates, among other articles, a thousand weight of 
cheese, nearly eight hundred- weight of butter, six or 
seven hogsheads of beer and cider, of the whole of which 
the house was entirely pillaged. Having obtained the 
order of Parliament to indemnify himself upon the 
property of his plunderers '*, one of whom was the poet 
Denham, then high-sheriff of the county, he lost no time 
in seizing upon the goods of " Master Denham and 
Master Tichborne," 

Both of these estates, however, were at the time un- 
tenanted, and the " goods which were Master Denham's," 
were, by an order of some sequestrators, taken out of 
Wither' s hands, and put into the possession of Denham's 
wife, who, " as do many other delinquents," the poet 
indignantly complained, found much more favour than 
he " did who had been ever faithful to the State." " For 
when my wife and children," he continues, "had been 
cruelly driven out of their habitation, and robbed of all 

* Journal of the House of Commons, February 9, 1642. Whereas, 
Mr. Denham, High Sheriff of the County of Surrey, Captain Hudson, 
Captain Brednoxe, Mr. Jo. Tichborne, and others, did, in a hostile man- 
ner, enter into the house and grounds of Captain George Wither, and did 
from thence carry and take away all his books and writings, with his 
goods and household-stuff, cattle, sheep, corn, and hay, and his teams, 
to the value of at least 2000/., as appeareth by an inventory of the parti- 
culars taken and estimated by his neighbours and others. It is therefore, 
this day ordered, by the Commons' House of Parliament, that the said 
Captain George Wither, be authorized by this House to repair himself for 
his said losses out of the estates of the said Sheriff and Captains, and 
such other persons who were accessory unto, or actually spoilers and 
plunderers of the estate of the said Captain Wither; or out of the goods 
and estates of such persons that are actually in arms against the Parlia- 
ment. And that wheresoever the said Captain Wither doth find any of 
the goods or estates belonging to any of the said persons aforesaid, that 
he do seize the same and take it into his custody for his relief, as aforesaid. 



GEORGE WITHER. 147 

they had, by her husband and his confederates, and 
when, by virtue of the forementioned order, I justly 
entered upon the house of the said Denham, purposing 
to harbour my said wife and children therein, Mistress 
Denham, having long before deserted the house, and left 
there only some tables, with such-like household- stuff, 
was, upon false suggestions, put again, by order, into 
possession of the house, because, as her charitable 
patron alleged, she was a gentlewoman, big with child, 
and had a fancy to the place *." 

Aubrey has given a rambling account of this occur- 
rence. " In the time of the civil war, Geo. Withers, 
the poet, begged Sir John Denham' s estate of the Par- 
liament, in whose cause he was a captain of horse. It 
happened that G. W. was taken prisoner, and was in 
danger of his life, having written severely against the 
king. Sir John Denham went to the king, and desired 
his Majesty not to hang him, for that while G. W. lived, he 
should not be the worst poet in England f" It seems 
likely that our poet's captivity took place after the battle 
of Edge-hill, on the 23rd of October, 1642, for we learn 
from Clarendon, that a very considerable number of 
the Parliament's cavalry officers were taken after that 
engagement J. 

A similar act of malicious kindness was performed by 
Henry Martin, when he saved the life of Sir William 

* " Ordered that the humble petition of Anne, the wife of John Den- 
ham, Esq., be referred to the examination of the Committee of this 
House for sequestration, or any three of them : and that in the mean time 
they shall have full power to deliver unto her child-bed linen and such 
other necessaries as they shall see fit." — Journals of the House of Com- 
mons, 11th May, 1643. 

t M. Lefevre-Couchy, the writer of the article on Wither in the 
Biographie Universelle, remarks on this anecdote, with pleasing sim- 
plicity, Wither ne fut done pas pendu. 

i History of the Rebellion, 4to. ed., Oxford, vol.ii, pt. 1, p. 77. 

T. 2 



148 GEORGE WITHER. 

Davenant ; but in Denham's request there was a bitter- 
ness which spoke of the lost fields at Egham. The 
name of Denham frequently recurs in the life of Wither. 
At this time his talents were not in much repute, 
although the Sophy, which gave rise to Waller's witty 
saying, that he broke out, like the Irish rebellion, three- 
score thousand strong, when nobody suspected it, was 
published in 1642*, and, according to Aubrey, " did 
take extremely." Soon after the battle of Edge-hill, his 
well-known poem of Cooper s Hill is said to have been 
printed at Oxford, " on a sort of brown paper, for there 
they could get no better." But this story, which has 
been always unhesitatingly credited, is not reconcileable 
with the fact of an edition of the poem having been pub- 
lished in London, by Thomas Walkley, in August, 1642. 
The poetical fortune of Denham forms a singular con- 
trast to that of his rival. While Wither has been long 
forgotten, except by a few students of our old poetry, 
the works of Denham have been carefully collected, and 
his life written by one who touched nothing he did not 
adorn. Yet Johnson, it must be confessed, was too 
favourable in his estimate of the poet's genius ; his 
claim to the invention of a species of poetry, to which 
the great critic has applied the name of local, seems to 
be purely imaginary. Cooper s Hill has nothing about it 
local, but the namef. Wither and Browne furnished 
specimens far more individually descriptive than any 

* Aubrey says it came out in 1640. I suppose he meant it was acted 
in that year. 

t The four lines, which since their commendation by Dryden, have 
been so often celebrated, are not found in the first London edition of 
Cooper's Hill. They stand thus : — 

O could my verse freely and smoothly run 

As thy pure flood, heaven should no longer know 

Her old Eridanus; thy purer stream 

Should bathe the gods, and be the poet's theme. 



GEORGE WITHER. 149 

thing in Denham. Pope formed a truer estimate of his 
merits, when he styled him " Majestic Denham/' an 
appellation to which the occasional dignity of his manner, 
particularly in the Lines upon the Earl of Strafford, fully 
entitled him. In more peaceful times his Muse might 
have given utterance to a grander strain. The happier 
efforts of his pen are still remembered with pleasure, 
and the portrait left of him by his friend Aubrey, places 
the poet before us in an interesting light. " He was of 
the tallest, but a little incurveting at his shoulders, not 
very robust. His hair was but thin and flaxen, with a 
moist curl. * * * His eye a kind of light goose 
grey, not big, but it had a strange piercingness, not as 
to shining and glory (but like a Momus) when he con- 
versed with you, he looked into your very thoughts." 

On the 25th of July, 1643,, the House of Commons 
directed the knights and burgesses of Middlesex and 
Surrey to summon Wither before them, and inquire 
what money or goods he had received upon the Orders 
of the 9th of February, and from whom, and what lands 
he possessed. 

The loss of his property, and the interruption of his 
agricultural occupations involved him in great dis- 
tress -, he was fined and imprisoned, and on him was 
"laid the censure" merited by others. Nothing re- 
mained for his support but u the poor household furni- 
ture within his door." His friends forsook him as a a 
faulty man," and his enemies grew bold and insolent in 
proportion. His afflictions cannot be told more touch- 
ingly than in his own narrative : — 

To add yet further to my great afflictions, 
God with a sickness (spreading forth infections) 
Visits my house, and drove all those from thence 
Who were some comfort to my indigence. 



150 GEORGE WITHER. 

My children were all sick of that disease, 

Their single keeper, to her little ease, 

Was their poor mother ; whilst, as sad as she, 

I thought whereby they might supported be, 

And we who served were awhile before, 

With sixteen household servants, sometimes more, 

Had then but one boy, who sick also lay, 

And one poor woman hired by the day. 

Westrow Revived, 1653. 

To support his family, he had already disposed of his 
plate, and his wife had "ript away" the silver and the 
" lace of gold" from her garments, and exchanged her 
ornaments for daily bread. Even the dishes that held 
their meat were also sold -, and last of all they parted 
with the "precious stones, the jewels, and the rings/' 
which had been given to them as "tokens of respect" 
from various distinguished persons. In this melancholy 
condition, yet still relying upon the Divine Providence, 
Wither says that he walked out and met his friend 
Mr. Westrow, who, touched by his calamities, presented 
him with twenty pounds. Westrow's charity did not 
relax -, the twenty pounds gradually grew to " twenty 
hundred crowns and more," which he advanced without 
desiring a bond, or bill, or note 

To testify the lending of one groat : 

And when Wither sent a full acknowledgement of all 
he had received, Westrow returned it to him, with an 
injunction that he should tell no man of the transactions 
between them. By this seasonable help he was enabled 
to recover some money detained from him " in a private 
hand," and he carried something to his friend every 
year in liquidation of the debt *. 

* In 1659 Wither had not forgotten his friend. " When I was much 
poorer than at present I am, God raised me up a friend, who, knowing 



GEORGE WITHER. 151 

Westrow died in 1653, and Wither honoured his 
memory with a poem, apparently inspired by unfeigned 
gratitude and esteem. Walker, in his History of Inde- 
pendency, has not left so favourable a picture of this 
individual $ he numbers him with those persons who had 
enriched themselves from poverty and a low degree, and 
says he was worth nothing until he became " a captain 
and a parliament man, when he got the Bishop of 
Worcester's manor of Hartlerow, which proved he had 
two good and beneficial offices*." Wither indignantly 
repelled this accusation against his friend, and represents 
him as one who, 

Living, walk'd upright in crooked ways, 
And chose the best part in the worst of days. 

Lord Essex also endeavoured to alleviate the poet's 
distresses. On the 12th of September, 1643, he issued 
a warrant for immediate payment of 287/. 125., and on 
the 13th of the same month another warrant for the 
further sum of 294/. 5 and on the 3rd of March in the 
following year, for the like payment of 190/.f 

Wither lent the cause he had adopted the aid of his 
pen as well as his sword. About the first year after the 
commencement of the war, he wrote the Mercurius 
Rusticus, a country messenger, in imitation of the 
Weekly Intelligencers. The newspapers published during 
the civil war have long since passed into the collections 
of antiquarians, and are become almost inaccessible even 

by what means I was necessitated (and how unlikely I was to repay 
him), brought nevertheless unto me without my asking ought (without 
obliging by a note under my hand, and without so much as requiring a 
promise of repayment), 500/., by parcels at several times during the con- 
tinuance of my wants." — E-pistolium-Vagwn Prosa-Metricum, p. 5. 

* Walker's History of Independency, p. 171, ed. 1660. 

t Recited in the report of Colonel Dove's Committee, to which 
Wither's claims were referred.— Journal of the House of Commons, 
January 2nd, 1650. 



152 GEORGE WITHER. 

to the scholar. The witty Cleveland called the diumals 
of that day, a history in sippets. So much brutality of 
insolence and cruelty of invective could only have been 
endured in a season of universal anarchy and confusion. 
The severity of the Royalists was, however, in some 
measure, redeemed by a vein of learning and wit. Wither 
touches pleasantly upon some of the most popular 
papers of the time. "Though I am not so witty as my 
friend Britannicus, nor bring you narratives that so 
well deserve the whetstone as Monsieur Aulicus*, nor 
come so furnished with novelties as Master Civicus, nor 
so supplied with passages as the Weekly Intelligencer, 
nor am at leisure to sum up occurrences as the Ac- 
comptant, &c. &c.j" he was afterwards ashamed of his 
periodical scribbling, and never renewed his visit, 
although he at first intimated his intention of doing so. 

The next production of his soldier-pen was the 
Campo-Musce, or Field Musings, written while he was " in 

* Monsieur Aulicus was Sir John Birkenhead, the prose Butler of 
the day. He was first brought into notice by Archbishop Laud, whose 
favour he obtained by some beautiful transcriptions. Birkenhead was 
at this time a Servitor of Oriel College, but Laud recommended him to 
a Fellowship at All Souls. When Charles the First held his Court at 
Oxford, Birkenhead was selected to write the Mercurius Aulicus, which 
he writ wittily enough, says Aubrey, until the surrender of the town in 
1646. But this is not strictly true. During a considerable period the 
paper was written by Dr. Peter Heylin, though not with equal humour 
or spirit. Wither was the frequent object of Birkenhead's ridicule. In 
a highly-amusing pamphlet, entitled Two Centuries of Paul's Church* 
yard, in which the Libri Theologici, Politici, Historici, &c. are divided 
into classes, we find in the third class, among other interesting announce- 
ments, the following : Aristotle's Works in English Meti*e, by George 
Wither, Wither was never attacked with impunity; and in the Great 
Assizes holden in Parnassus, published in 1643, and ascribed to his pen, 
Sir John Birkenhead is severely handled. 

The reader will find a full and interesting notice of the newspapers 
printed during the civil war, in the British Bibliographer , vol. i., p. 513; 
Appendix to Chalmers's Life ofRuddiman, and the Introduction to Crom- 
welliana. 

Aubrey, after describing Birkenhead "of middling stature and great 
goggle eyes," adds, rather needlessly, that he was not of a " sweet aspect " 



GEORGE WITHER. 153 

arms for the King and Parliament." The king and the 
parliament was a phrase constantly in the mouth of the 
republicans, even while they were using every means to 
overthrow the monarchy. Through the Field Musings 
are scattered several interesting anecdotes of the writer's 
military life. His colonel, he tells us, was Middleton, a 
valiant Scot, on whose left flank he led his own troop to 
the charge*. His fare and lodging were of the true 
martial kind 5 he had the open fields for his quarters, 
and was very happy to make a comfortable bed in a 
" well-made barley-cock," with the starry sky for his 
canopy and curtains. Yet even here, amid the din and 
tumult of arms, he prophesied the fall of nations, and 
prepared for publication his own views of the Bible, and 
the mysteries of the Apocalypse. 

But Wither' s tergiversation did not pass unnoticed : 
an opponent rose up in the person of the Water-poet. 
Honest John Taylor was now at Oxford, whither he had 
fled from the persecutions of his enemies in London -, 
and he tells us, in that strange but amusing medley, 
Mad verse, Sad verse, Glad verse, and Bad verse, that 
upon his arrival at Oxford, he found the king and a 
large party of nobility in " Christ Church garden," and 
that the monarch, on perceiving him, immediately came 
towards him, and " put forth his royal hand strait," 
which, says Taylor, with no small exultation, 

On my knees I humbly kneel* d and kist. 
This mark of the king's favour lent a fresh vigour to 
his feelings, and he applied the lash with an unsparing 

* A description of the poet's flag is given by Prestwich in his Res- 
Publico, p. 35. Captain George Withers, the poet— gules; in saltier a 
sword bladed proper, hilted or; over which a golden "pen ; over both in 
fess, a scroll, and thereon Pro Rege, Lege, Grege— fringed urgent and 
gules. See also p. 94. 



154 GEORGE WITHER. 

hand to the political dereliction of his former friend. 
He entitled his reply to the Campo-Musce, Aqua Musa, 
or Cacofago, Cacodcemon, Captain George Wither wrung in 
the Withers*. The contents of the poem are not more 
euphonious than the title. In the preface he declares, 
that he had loved and respected Wither thirty-five years, 
because he thought him " simply honest/' and takes leave 
of him in a strain of no common malevolence and scorn. 
The Skuller, as Ben Jonson called him, possessed a 
vocabulary rich in epithets of abuse. 

If Withers narrative be true, and of his veracity no 
doubt can be fairly entertained, he was at this period 
esteemed a person of considerable political influence. 
In the Cordial Confection he tells the following singular 
anecdote : — That during the King's residence at Oxford, 
he received two letters from Lord Butler, which, at the 
time of writing the Confection, in 1659, were still pre- 
served among his papers, offering to settle half of his 
estate upon the poet, only as a small earnest of greater 
rewards from Charles himself, if he would embrace the 
royal cause f. This offer was rejected. Of Lord Butler 
I know nothing. Butler was the family name of the 
Marquis of Ormond, whose devotion to his royal master 
has been commemorated by Clarendon and Burnet. But 
he could not have been at Oxford, and his son Thomas, 
Earl of Ossory, was only a boy. 

* Printed at Oxford, in 1644. The author of the Aqua-Musce was 
not altogether free from the charge of fickleness. Of Wither's Motto, 
which we have before seen him praising as a "better book," he now said, 
And in his Motto did with brags declare, 
That in himself all virtues perfect were. 
Taylor had not forgotten his alienated friend in 1645. In the Rebells 
Anathematized, &c, published in that year, he speaks of 
Wither, that dainty darling of the dolts, 
t I was invited to that side by two letters from the Lord Butler, which 
I think are yet among my papers. — Cordial Confection, p. 32. 



GEORGE WITHER. 155 

Before the publication of the Field-Musing s y Wither 
had disbanded his troop 5 his reasons are briefly given 
in the Nil Ultra: — 

But so divisions them enraged 
Who were in that contest engaged, 
And such ill consequents presaged, 

That I my troop did soon disband ; 
And hopeless I should ought essay- 
Successful in a martial way, 
My sword and arms quite flung away, 

And took my pen again in hand. 

He declared in "the speech without door/' delivered 
July 9, 1644, that he had served the republic in a 
military capacity while he had any thing to serve it 
with, and had kept his horses until they .had " twice 
eaten out their heads/' A MS. note, in a contemporary 
hand-writing in the copy of the speech among the King's 
pamphlets, says that the author was at the time Poet 
Laureat, a title never claimed or even mentioned by 
Wither himself. 

Our poet did not again take up his sword. He had 
told Lord Essex in the dedication of the Field-Musings, 
that his pen would probably strengthen the Parliament 
army more than a regiment of horse; and he showed 
himself quite as active in one employment as he had 
been in the other. Polemical pens are rarely idle or 
exhausted. In the same year he addressed " Letters of 
Advice" to all the counties and corporations of England, 
particularly Southampton and Surrey, "touching the 
choice of Knights and Burgesses 3" and in the following 
year he lifted up a "Voice of Peace," tending, as he hoped, 
to the pacification of God's wrath, and the healing of the 
wounded commonwealth. But they whose assistance 



156 GEORGE WITHER. 

had contributed to raise the storm, possessed no power 
either to mitigate or allay it; and observers, like Wither, 
who expected the cloud would have dissolved in a little 
harmless lightning, turned away in doubt and fear from 
its threatening aspect. He waited for peace, but he 
waited in vain*. 

He was himself soon to fall under the vindictive malice 
of the party with whom he had sided. At the close of 

1645, or the beginning of 1646, he was ejected from the 
magistracy of Surrey, to which he had been appointed 
by the Long Parliament, principally, as he suspected, 
through the interest of Sir Richard Onslow and his 
friends, "who found it pertinent to the establishing their 
designs on the Government, that he should be put out 
of the commission." Wither did not often conceal his 
sentiments, whether of love or hatred, and he imme- 
diately retaliated on his enemy in a very bitter pamphlet, 
Justiciarius Justificatus ,• or, The Justice Justified, in which 
he vindicated his conduct in the execution of his duty, 
having, he declared, neither delayed nor perverted justice, 
" nor put any man to so much cost for it as the expense 
of one clerk's fee." 

This attack enraged Onslow, and on the 1 Oth of April, 

1646, he complained of the pamphlet to the House of 
Commons; and Wither, who happened to be at the door, 
where his petitions caused him to be a frequent at- 
tendant, being called in, avowed himself the author. 
Upon this it was resolved, "■ That Mr. G. Wither be forth- 
with sent for as a delinquent by the Serjeant at Arms;" 
and having been brought in a second time, after he had 
"kneeled awhile," the Speaker informed him of the 
intention of the House to refer the consideration of the 

* Opobalsamum Anglicauum, August, 1646. 



GEORGE WITHER. 157 

pamphlet to the Committee of Examinations. On the 
4th of May, Mr. Whittacre and some other members of 
that committee were directed to send for Wither, and to 
inquire into the truth of his allegations. The following 
extract from the Journal of the House of Commons for 
the 7th of August, 1646, will not be uninteresting: — 

" Mr. Whittacre reports the state of the examinations 
concerning a pamphlet written and published by Mr. 
George Withers, intituled Justiciarius Justificatus; and 
concerning a practice informed of in Mr. Withers, and 
one Mr. Andrewes Burrell, of accusing Sir Richard 
Onslow that he sent monies to the King at Oxon 5 and 
the several examinations, and the instances and in- 
ferences out of them, were all read by the Reporter. 

" The humble petition of George Wither was read, de- 
siring further time to prove what he suggested in his 
book. 

" Another humble petition of George Wither was read, 
expressing his sorrow for his error in transgressing against 
the privileges of this House." 

It having been resolved that the] reflections upon 
Onslow in the Justiciarius Justificatus were unfounded, 
' false and scandalous,' the question was " propounded, 
that Mr. George Wither should pay unto Sir Richard 
Onslow the sum of five hundred pounds for his damages." 

" The question being put, the House divided, and there 
appeared for the question 65 3 against it 54 3 leaving a 
majority of 1 1 in favour of the fine. 

It was then resolved, "That the book called Justi- 
ciarius Justificatus shall be burned at Kingston upon 
Thames, and at Guildford, upon the market days there, 
by the Marshal attending the Committee at Kingston 
aforesaid." 



158 GEORGE WITHER. 

According to Wood, our poet was, at the time of this 
debate, in prison for the libel -, and he afterwards asserted 
that he knew nothing of the impeachment until he was 
startled by the news of the conviction. The accusation, 
he says, in the Fragmenta Prophetica, was brought on 
early in the morning, but so many members " abominated 
what they perceived to be intended, that the whole day 
was spent, before the author's enemies could prevail 
against him." That he had many friends in the House 
is proved by the small majority ; and it maybe remarked 
that Lieutenant General Cromwell was " Teller for the 
Noe." After a confinement of nearly twelve months, he 
was released without " petitioning or mediation for it," 
and, we may conclude, without paying the fine. 

His imprisonment neither taught him discretion, nor 
improved his fortunes. 

Much of the disquiet which imbittered so many years 
of his life, was occasioned by the difficulty he experienced 
in obtaining compensation for the plunder of his estate 
by the Royalists, and the liquidation of the debt due to 
him from the Parliament. A great portion of his time 
was wasted in fruitless attendance upon various Com- 
mittees. On one petition, he tells us, he bestowed two 
months 5 on another, ten 5 and on a third, a year and 
nine months. Milton, in a passage supposed to refer to 
his own sufferings, bitterly complained that the truest 
friends of the republic, after having afforded the aid of 
their labours and fortunes, were tossed from one Com- 
mittee to another with petitions in their hands. 

The various methods employed by Wither to attract 
the notice of Parliament were very ingenious. On the 
12th of November, 1646, he placed an humble memoran- 



GEORGE WITHER. 159 

dum in the hands of several members as they entered 
the House. It was in these words : — 

Sir, 

Mind your faithful servant ; for my need 
Requires compassion, and deserveth heed. 
Though I have many rivals at your door, 
Vouchsafe me justice, and 111 ask no more. 

His efforts were not altogether ineffectual. On the 
15th of March, 1647, an order was agreed to by the 
Lords and Commons, for payment of 1800/. out of Dis- 
coveries at Haberdashers' Hall 3 and on the 22nd of the 
same month, a further order was made for the payment 
of 1681/. 15^. Sd. out of the Excise. Nothing, however, 
was gained by these orders, which do not seem to have 
been ever enforced, and the House was at length induced 
to appoint some "selected members" to provide him 
with a temporary employment until his claims could be 
adjusted. When he published his Si Quis *, in 1 648, he 
stood recommended to a situation of considerable value, 
which he does not appear to have obtained. 

About this time, he says, when he was living upon the 
charity of friends, " God providentially, beyond his hope, 
enabled him to purchase a considerable estate, by means 
of their acting against him who thereby intended their 
own benefit and his ruin-" and the Parliament also sold 
him a Manor, worth 300/. per annum, in consideration 
of "his debt of 1600/. and more by him paid." I sup- 
pose the property alluded to belonged to the See of Win- 

* Weaver, in his Life and Death of Sir John Oldcastle, says, " Set up 
a Si Quis, give intelligence." A Si Quis was formerly a term for what 
we now call a hand-bill. — Brit. Bib., vol. i, p. 314. 
I'll fix a Si Quis (or it may be mo) 
Upon the postern gate before I go. 

Wither'* Perpetual Parliament, p. 72. 



160 GEORGE WITHER. 

Chester. Withers purchases of church-lands are detailed 
in Gale's History of Winchester Cathedral: — 

The Manor of North Walton, in Hampshire, sold to George 
Wither and Thomas Allen, July 5, 1648, for 964/. 135. 6d. 

The Manor of Bentley and Alverstock, and Borough of 
Gosport, sold to George Wither and Elizabeth his wife, for 
1185/. 45. 5%d. 9 September 25, 1648. 

The Manor of Itchinswell and Northampton Farm, sold to 
Nicholas Love and George Wither, for 1756/. 9s. \d., Sep- 
tember 28, 1648. 

The Manor of Hantden, sold to George Wither for 
3796/, 18s. lid, March 23, 1650. 

Misfortunes still followed him : the " estate was lost 
again/' and the Manor, after he had "enjoyed it awhile," 
was resold by the Parliament to a member of their own, 
who pretended to have a mortgage upon it, and the poet 
was ejected " by a Suit in Law," without any satisfaction 
for the loss of his purchase -money, and was even com- 
pelled to pay the expenses of the suit, with other charges, 
amounting to several hundred pounds. 

His calls for relief, however, were not entirely disre- 
garded. In 1649, a few members of Parliament, "with- 
out his seeking," endeavoured to provide him with some 
occupation in order to satisfy his "just demands," and 
he acknowledged their kindness in A Thankful Retribution. 
The office which they sought, unsuccessfully, to procure, 
seems to have been that of Register in the Court of Chan- 
cery. Instead of this, Park thinks he was appointed one 
of the Commissioners for levying assessments in Surrey, 
as appears from the Usurpation Acts ofl649-50. A gen- 
tleman of the name of Lloyd possessed a certificate, at- 
tested by Wither on the 10th of December, 1651, while 
acting under this Commission, and entitled, " The report 
of Colonel John Humphreys, and Major George Wither, 



GEORGE WITHER. 161 

touching the demands and accounts of M. Rene Angier, 
made upon a reference to them by the Committee for the 
sale of the King's goods." M. Angier had been agent 
in France both for the King and the Parliament. 

In 1 649, the poet hailed the victory of General Jones 
in Dublin over the troops of the Marquis of Ormond, 
with a Thank- Oblation, which occupies six quarto pages. 
This ode of gratulation is alluded to in one of the pe- 
riodicals of the day. ' c At Westminster they are very lazy, 
and have done very little more of public concernment -, 
but as it appears, George Withers has been very much 
busied in composing a Hymn of Praises for their great 
achievement and victory against Ormond, which he pre- 
sented most of the members with on Thursday last, in 
hopes they would have sung it the day after, being the 
thanksgiving day appointed*." 

We have already seen that the orders made for Withers 
relief were productive of no benefit to him, and on the 
2nd of January, 1650, a Report upon his case was de- 
livered to the House by Colonel Dove, from which it 
appeared that 3958/. 155. 8d., with interest, were then 
due. The Report recommended that for the 1681/. 
charged upon the Excise, eight per cent, should be paid 
every six months ; and that for the remainder of the 
sum of 3958/. the Manor of Little Horksley, in Essex, 
should be settled on Wither and his heirs. This estate, 
which was valued by the sequestrators at a yearly rent 
of 240/., formed a part of the inheritance of Sir John 
Denham, whom the Report calls the poet's u chief plun- 
derer." Colonel Dove's suggestions were only partially 
adopted. The 1681/. were secured, according to the 
recommendation of the Report, upon the Excise j but 

* Mercurius Elencticus, Monday, August 27, to September 3, 1649. 

M 



162 GEORGE WITHER. 

instead of the entire estate of Little Horksley, only 
150/. was settled upon the poet in "full satisfaction 
and discharge of all demands/' and Mr. Garland was 
ordered " to bring in an Act for that purpose." 

Neither Withers private troubles, nor his labours as 
a Commissioner, prevented him from occasionally ob- 
serving the political world. Upon the rumour of an 
intention suddenly to dissolve the Parliament in Septem- 
ber 1652, he immediately issued a Timely Caution, com- 
prehended in seven double trimeters. The only classi- 
cal portion of the pamphlet is the title. 

He also employed some of the November nights of 
the same year in visionary schemes for remodelling the 
external and internal construction of the House of Com- 
mons. In the Perpetual Parliament, published April 24, 
1653, he proposed to build a new House of Assembly at 
Whitehall, of a fair and imposing aspect, and beautified 
with walks and pleasant gardens. The members were 
to be arrayed in a senatorial robe or toga, wearing 
wreaths of gold around their necks, from which was to 
be suspended a tablet with the British Isles enamelled 
upon it. Annual Parliaments were to be introduced 
with a monthly election of Speaker : all undue influence 
in the return of members was to be punished with exile, 
and all cases of bribery in public offices, with death. 
A twelfth part of the representatives of England and 
Wales was to be chosen monthly, and for those in 
residence, a 

Constant table of a meal a-day 

was to be provided at a moderate charge. Every thing 
connected with the institution was to be pure, noble, and 
disinterested. 

Withers political dreams must be numbered with 



GEORGE WITHER. 163 

the equally beautiful and fantastic visions of Milton 
and Cowley. Structures like these, raised in the tran- 
quillity of an enthusiastic mind, can only retain their 
purity and lustre in the serene and unclouded atmo- 
sphere of truth and virtue. 

With the Perpetual Parliament was printed the Dark 
Lantern. Finding the season to be one of considerable 
danger, he availed himself of his Lantern, which enabled 
him to walk out without being seen, and to afford light 
wherever he found it desired. About the same time he 
put into the hands of Cromwell a Declaration tending to 
the settlement of the Government. Of our poet's poli- 
tical intimacy with the Protector, a curious and interest- 
ing account is contained in the Cordial Confection. After 
alluding to the Declaration, he thus goes on with the 
narrative : — 

" This overture being made at a time when his fears 
and hazards were very great, though that Discourse was 
very large, he, with much seeming contentment, heard me 
read it over to the last word ; and then protested, accord- 
ing to his usual manner, that it answered to his heart 
as the shadow of his face in the glass (then hanging before 
him in the room) answered to his face; and pretended 
that he would publish that Declaration, and act accord- 
ingly, as soon as he, with one in whose discretion he 
much confided, had considered what alteration it might 
need (or words to that effect), and then received it of 
me, promising to return it, with his final resolution, 
within a week. 

" At the week's end, or thereabout, he or Mr. Thurloe, 
then Secretary (who seemed also to approve thereof), 
delivered back unto me my papers, and the Protectors 
answer, which then was, — ' That he himself, together 

m 2 



164 GEORGE WITHER. 

with the said Secretary and myself, would within a few 
days examine it over to see what verbally might require 
alteration, or what addition would be necessary 5 and 
that being done, he would then, without fail, make order 
for the publication thereof.' But afterwards he aposta- 
tized from that resolution, to his own disadvantage, and 
the occasion of what hath since befallen to the public 
detriment 3 yet pretended many months together a firm 
adherence to what he had seemingly resolved on, keeping 
me all that time in attendance 5 gave me the key of his 
closet at the end of the Shield Gallery in Whitehall 
(wherein his books and his papers lay) to retire unto 
when I came thither • carried me often to his own table 3 
frequently discoursed with me concerning my proposal, 
and appointed many set days wherein to review the said 
papers, but failed always in performance ; wherewith I, 
being a little discontented, told him I thought his mind 
was changed, and giving him back the key of his closet, 
purposed never to wait again upon him, in relation to 
that business. He then, with very respective words to 
me, excusing his delays, assured me that at six of the 
clock next morning, he would send for his Secretary and 
despatch that which he intended, before he would admit 
any other person into his presence. I came before the 
appointed hour, but was then also put off until a little 
past three in the afternoon -, at which time I attended 
till past four, and then hearing that he and his Secretary 
were gone forth in a coach to take the air, I purposed 
to depart and lose no more time on that occasion 5 and 
as I was leaving the room, one informed me that about 
the same hour in which I was appointed to attend him 
and his Secretary, their necks were both in hazard to be 
broken by the Protector's usurping the office of his 



GEORGE WITHER. 165 

coachman, and that they were both brought in so hurt 
that their lives were in danger. Of that imprudent, if 
not disgraceful, attempt, misbeseeming his person, I 
endeavoured to prevent as much dishonour as I might 
by a little poem, as I thought it my duty, in regard he 
executed the supreme office at that time." 

This little poem was the ' Vaticinium Casuale, or a Rap- 
ture for the late Miraculous Deliverance of his Highness 
the Lord Protector from a desperate danger.' The poet, 
who felt the ludicrous situation of his hero, attempted 
to elevate the dignity of the modern coachman by a 
comparison with the charioteer of the Olympic games. 
But his Rapture contained something more valuable 
than flattery. He did not hesitate to remind Cromwell 
of the nature of his office, and of the penalty which would 
hereafter be exacted for every act of injustice. 

" After this/' continues Wither, " he (Cromwell) called 
on me again, as if his mind had not been wholly changed, 
and referred the said Papers to his Privy Council, who 
referred them to a Sub -Committee, of which Sir Gilbert 
Pickering being one, gave it a high approbation, and was 
pleased to say he did not flatter me -, but from that time 
forward I heard no more of it. Another service I did, 
which much tended to his and the public safety, whereto 
Sir Gilbert Pickering is privy likewise; and in con- 
sideration of the fore- mentioned services, the said Pro- 
tector, having without my asking that, or any thing else, 
(but to be relieved according to justice from my oppres- 
sions which I could not obtain) gave me the Statute Office, 
and afterwards made it of little worth unto me, because, 
as I conceive, I exprest my thankfulness for it by de- 
claring unto him those truths which he was not willing 
to hear of." 



1 66 GEORGE WITHER. 

Sir Gilbert Pickering was one of the Protector's 
council, but he is remembered with more interest as the 
kinsman and early patron of Dryden. During Wither *s 
frequent visits to the closet at Whitehall, and the table 
of Cromwell, it is not improbable that he may have met 
the illustrious Milton, who had been made Latin Secre- 
tary in the spring of 1649, and his connexion with Sir 
Gilbert Pickering was likely to introduce him into the 
society of Dryden. No mention of either, however, 
occurs in any of his works. 

The poem called the Protector, published in 1655, in 
which Wither illustrated the dignity of the office, and, 
as he thought, " rationally" proved it the most honour- 
able of all titles, contributed to awaken the gratitude of 
Cromwell. Of this poem, we discover from a MS. note, 
a second impression enlarged appeared in 1656, probably 
containing a tribute of thanks to Oliver for the appoint- 
ment to the Statute Office. Of the nature of this situa- 
tion I am not able to give any account ; it was, I con- 
clude, synonymous with the Record Office bestowed upon 
Prynne after the Restoration. 

The titular distinction of the New Governor is known 
to have been the subject of frequent discussion ; and 
Wither, on the 7th of October, 1657, attempted to clear 
up the difficulty by a Suddain Flash, showing why the 
style of Protector should be continued. Our poet was 
not the only offerer of this grateful incense. Waller 
had already hailed the elevation of the " Lord Protector" 
with what has been pronounced by Johnson, with little 
justice, his famous panegyric. Of the author of the 
Rambler, it is the writer's wish to speak with the respect 
due to his lofty intellect, his Christian philosophy, and 
his dignified morality 3 but from some of his poetical 



GEORGE WITHER. 16/ 

decisions he may be pardoned for appealing. Waller 
has long enjoyed a prominent place among the British 
poets, to the exclusion of more deserving candidates. 
Prior had said, that Denham and Waller improved our 
versification, and Dryden perfected it 5 and subsequent 
critics have admitted the assertion without hesitation. 
Yet Wither showed a mastery over the language long 
before Denham or Waller had printed a line 5 and even 
from his most negligent works might be extracted lines 
equal, if not superior, to any thing in Waller's panegyric. 

If we may credit Wood, the favour of Cromwell was 
not limited to the gift of the Statute Office. The ill- 
natured antiquary says, that he made the poet Major- 
General of all the horse and foot in the county of Surrey, 
in which employment " he licked his fingers suffi- 
ciently, gaining thereby a great odium from the generous 
loyalists." The institution of Major- Generals, and the 
division of England and Wales into districts immediately 
under their military jurisdiction, was a scheme worthy 
of the usurper. From the decrees of these martial 
judges there was no appeal. They sent whom they 
pleased to prison, says one of their founder's warmest 
admirers, and confined them where they pleased*. 
Among the victims of this oppressive regulation, was 
the celebrated Jeremy Taylor, who suffered a confine- 
ment of some months in Chepstow Castle. But Wood's 
statement respecting Wither is unfounded. If the poet 
" licked his fingers," it was not in the capacity of a 
Major-General. Colonel Kelsey was appointed Major- 
General of Kent and Surrey, and Colonel Goffe filled 
the same situation in Hampshire. 

On the 3rd of September, 1658, Cromwell died, and 

* Godwin's History of the Commonwealth, vol. iv., p. 242. 



168 GEORGE WITHER. 

Wither composed a Private Meditation upon the oc- 
casion. Of this political Proteus many pictures have 
been drawn. He was the fortunate madman of Mazarine, 
the brave wicked man of Clarendon, the exhausted 
villain of Bishop Burnet 3 yet we ought to remember 
that Baxter, a shrewd and careful observer, thought he 
" meant honestly in the main, and was pious and con- 
scionable" till prosperity and success corrupted him*. 
No man has been the subject of more flattery or abuse ; 
with one party the throned king of the apostacy, with 
the other, the creature of infamy and pollution. He is 
said by his admirers to have esteemed men of learning, 
and to have expressed an inclination to hire the pen of 
Meric Casaubon to write his history, and to patronize 
Hobbes for the Leviathan. But the invitation to Casau- 
bon could only prove that he was desirous of per- 
petuating his exploits in the most graceful manner. He 
wished to sit for his picture and direct the artist. His 
intellect was bold and vigorous, full of nerve and power, 
and peculiarly adapted to wrestle with the stormy in- 
fluences of the age he lived in. Fickle and uncertain in 
his friendships and promises, he fostered hopes one hour, 
only to crush them in the next. Of his variableness 
an example has been already afforded in the case of 
our poet. 

" On the demise of Cromwell," says Mr. T. Campbell, 
" Wither hailed the accession of Richard with joyful gra- 
tulation. He never but once in his life foreboded good, 
and in that prophecy he was mistaken." It is easier for 
a critic to be witty than correct. If Mr. Campbell had 
ever taken the trouble to look into Withers political 
works, he would have seen the fallacy of the observation. 

* Reliquie BasteriaruZ) pt. i., p. 98. 



GEORGE WITHER. 169 

On the expulsion of the Parliament by General Lam- 
bert, in the October of 1659, he lost no time in pre- 
paring A Cordial Confection against the Fainting of the 
Heart in those distracted times, which he printed on the 
23rd of December, addressed to Mr. Robert Hamon, 
merchant. In the copy of this pamphlet in the British 
Museum, is the following observation written on a 
blank leaf, and dated January 6, 1660: — "This Libell 
was scattered about the streets that night those bloody 
villains intended their massacre in London, which was 
upon Sunday night, the 6th of January, 1660,, being 
Twelfth Night." In this pamphlet Wither asserts, that 
during nine years' solicitation he had been unsuccessful 
in procuring the reading of one petition in Parliament ; 
but I find, from the Journals of the House of Commons, 
that the " petitions of Colonel Cooke and George 
Withers" were ordered to be read on Monday morning, 
February the 21st, 1656. Whether they were actually 
read on that day does not appear. 

During the unsettled events of 1659-60, he was enjoy- 
ing a little repose in the retirement of Hambledon, from 
which place he dates his Furor Poeticus, on the 1 9th of 
February in that year * . There are two villages of this 
name, one in the county of Southampton, and the other 
near Godalming, in Surrey 3 the former must have been 
the poet's residence, for we learn from the Epistle at 
Random, that his family had been settled in Hampshire 
two years. The intentions of General Monk were then 
the subject of general anxiety. Pepys says in his Diary, 
" All the world is at a loss to think what Monk will do • 
the City saying he will be for them, and the Parliament 

* In the Advertisement, at the end, he announces that any of his 
recent works may be had " of Mrs. Stamps, who selleth books in West- 
minster Hall." 



170 GEORGE WITHER. 

saying he will be for them." Wither urged him to con- 
tinue the stedfast champion of the Republic ; how far 
he followed that advice is well known. 

The. Furor Poeticus obtained no relief for the petitioner. 
For nearly seventeen years had he been pouring out his 
complaints in public and in private, writing "many hun- 
dreds of poems, papers, and petitions," beside MS. ad- 
dresses delivered into the hands of the two Protectors, and 
all with no more success than if he had supplicated " the 
Statues in Westminster Abbey, or Whitehall Garden." 
During this long and anxious season of hope deferred, 
the quiet beauty of his native hamlet frequently came 
back upon his heart, and he longed to dwell again "by 
the wood- side in a country village." He was, however, 
still engaged in agricultural pursuits, although prevented, 
by his occupation in London from visiting his farm 
more than two or three times in the year, and he ex- 
pressed a fear, that owing to his increasing poverty, the 
land would soon be left unstocked. 

His enemies appear to have been more active than 
his friends, having not only obtained the omission of 
his name in the Commission of the Peace for Hampshire, 
but in the Militia also ; these were severe trials to the 
poet, now past his seventieth year, and, in his own words, 
worn out by oppression. After pathetically alluding to 
his depressed condition, and the want of sufficient funds 
to meet, with punctuality, the demands of his creditors, 
he continues: — 

" To preserve myself as much as I could from this 
vexation and scandal, and to supply my personal wants 
(occasioned by other men deceiving my hopes), I have 
been enforced to sell away above 2000/. worth of my 
then remaining livelihood, real and personal, and am 



GEORGE WITHER. 1/1 

still engaged, by my continuing oppressions, in almost as 
much more, though I have, since the sales last men- 
tioned, sold by parcels, to the dismembering of my in- 
heritance, all that was disengaged, and at my free dis- 
posal. Yea, the consumption goes on, insomuch that 
the remainder of the portion left in possession (unless 
part of that which is due to me may be paid to free it 
from incumbrance) is likely to be forfeited within a few 
months. And though forfeiture should be saved, my 
revenue will not be sufficient to discharge taxes and 
parochial payments with the interest of my remaining 
debts, and unavoidable expenses by them unusually oc- 
casioned, and afford a maintenance for myself, my wife, 
children, and servants (though a far less number than 
heretofore), after the rate of five shillings the week one 
person with another, throughout the year, to provide 
meat, drink, raiment, servants' wages, children's portions, 
and all other necessaries in sickness and in health. 
* * * And what is worse than all, I, whose 
^credit was so good that when occasion heretofore re- 
quired it, have borrowed 100/., 200/., 300/., yea, 600/., 
in one place for several years upon my single bond (as 
will yet appear by the bonds cancelled), am now doubt- 
ful whether my security will pass alone for 10/." 

So poor was he, indeed, that when he heard the inten- 
tion of the Parliament to rate him at two horses for the 
service of the militia, he professed himself scarcely able 
to find them even bridles. - His losses amounted to 
nearly ten thousand pounds. He had been ejected from 
his share of Denham's estate in 1654, having never, 
during the period he possessed it, "made one penny of 
clear profit by reason of interruption $ " and a small 
parcel of land he had purchased at Ash, in Surrey, in 



172 



GEORGE WITHER. 



1651, had been taken from him, and was detained, 
in spite of his remonstrances, by a member of the Par- 
liament. His creditors also contributed to increase his 
sufferings by legal expenses, and he at length found 
himself reduced from an income of 700/. per annum, to 
comparative destitution. Some affecting passages are 
scattered through the Speculum Speculativum, If, as his 
conscience told him, he had neglected the Almighty in 
the hour of his prosperity, he remembered Him in loneli- 
ness, in poverty, and in tears. At " seventy years and 
two " he looked forward with feelings of joyful antici- 
pation to the end of his pilgrimage, consoling himself 
with the certainty of singing " care and life away" in 
a few brief years or months. His former friends had 
forsaken him, or were ranged on the side of his enemies, 
and he bitterly complained that his greatest persecu- 
tions were caused by those who 

Many days 



Walked with him friendlike in the self-same ways. 
In his Hymn of Confession and Praise, he poured out 
the earnest prayers of a religious heart. 

Therefore take thou no care, 

For God thy help will be, 
And put on them a greater fear 

Than they can put on thee. 
Man liveth not by bread alone, 

And that (should it be told) 
Which now my life depends upon, 

Your eyes cannot behold. 
You robbed me of external things, 

But what the worse am I, 
If I have in me living springs 

That never will be dry ! 

Many verses might be quoted from the same compo- 



GEORGE WITHER. 1/3 

sition, equally touching, and marked by the same pure 
and Christian resignation*. 

Deserted by those whom he had assisted with his 
labours and fortune, having borrowed money for their 
use, for which he was obliged to pay interest out of his 
own pocket, he looked forward to the restoration of the 
exiled Prince with mingled anticipations of hope and 
danger. He was weary of the hypocrisy and selfishness 
of the political charlatans who sacrificed the' public 
good to their personal aggrandizement, and his early 
respect and attachment to the monarchy began to revive. 
Immediately after the Restoration, he joined in the 
universal welcome to the King, and "wanting better 
gifts," brought 

A little cluster of those grapes that grew 
Upon his wither d vine; 

an offering he had intended to present with his own 
hand, had not the difficulty of gaining access to the 
royal presence prevented him. It is only just to remark 
that the congratulation was unblemished by the gross 
flattery which characterised similar productions, and he 
honestly declared, that knowing nothing of the virtues 
of Charles, he was unable to write a panegyric in their 
praise. 

But a new storm was already gathering over the 
poet's head. The church-lands he had purchased of 
the Parliament were forcibly seized, before the King's 

* In the same spirit is a supplication for his family : — 
In mercy, too, remember me and mine, 
Increase our faith ; keep close our hearts to thine 
In all our trials : be not so severe 
To mark the murm'rings, the distrust, or fear, 
Whereto we tempted are, but pardon all 
Our failings, that we stumble not to fall. 

Speculum Speculativum, p. 120. 



174 GEORGE WITHER. 

commissioners had time to decide upon the merits of the 
question, and the remainder of his stock and goods was 
taken away in the night. In the Fides Anglicana, or a 
Plea for the Public Faith of these Nations, he dwelt upon 
his wrongs with considerable ingenuity*. The right of 
the prelates to the lands of which they had been de- 
spoiled was of course unquestionable, but the summary 
mode employed to dispossess him was contrary to the 
Royal Declaration. 

Wither' s situation, at this time, offers a singular con- 
trast to that of his old enemy, Sir John Denham. While 
our poet was sitting in his solitary chamber on the 
morning of the Coronation- day, Denham, we are told 
by Pepys, was leading a party of friends into the Abbey. 

The loss of his lands formed only a small portion of 
Wither' s calamity. While engaged in writing a political 
address f to the Members of Parliament, his room was 
suddenly entered, and the MS. taken from him, together 
with a large bag full of books and letters, which was 
carried away by a porter. He says that the seizure 
was made without any legal authority, but it appears to 
have been effected under a warrant from Secretary 
Nicholas j. This must have taken place at the beginning 
of August l66l, for on the 12th of that month he ad- 
dressed a poem to his friends, from " Mr. Northrops, 
one of the King's Messengers, in Westminster," where, 
he adds, he was " civilly used." On the 22nd he was 
removed to Newgate, and soon after petitioned the 

* He says in the Speculum Speculativum — 

I bought these lands without offending 

My conscience, or a wrong to them intending. 

+ Vox Vulgi, being a welcome home from the Counties, Cities, and 
Boroughs, to their prevaricating Members. 

% Kennet's Register, p. 648. 



GEORGE WITHER. 175 

" Lord Mayor and the rest of the Commissioners of the 
Peace, and Gaol Delivery, for the city of London/' to 
admit him to bail. His request was refused, and he 
returned to his cell and consoled himself with the pro- 
spect of soon seeing his wife, who seems to have been 
living in Hampshire, but on the day before that ap- 
pointed for her arrival, he received the intelligence of 
her severe and dangerous illness. Never, he ex- 
claimed, in the anguish of his grief, had he known 
imprisonment until that hour, when he learnt the sick- 
ness of his wife, and called to mind his own inability to 
assist her or relieve her wants. 

Despoiled of all she had 



Excepting what might make her heart more sad, 

With foes surrounded, not one to befriend her, 

Nor servants in that weakness to attend her ; 

No good physician living there about, 

Scarce any thing within doors, or without 

For food or physic*. — Crums and Scraps, p. 80. 

The date of his marriage has not been discovered. 
That it did not take place very early in life, is evident 
from a passage in Britain s Remembrancer, in which he 
says, after ridiculing the preposterous foreign fashions 
of the times, 

I hope that she 

Who shall be mine (if any such there be) 

Whatever accident or change befalls, 

Will still retain her English naturals. 

Canto 6, p. 178. 

* In the Fides Anglicana, p. 37, he speaks of his wife being "neces- 
sitated, above fifty miles distant, to keep possession with her maid in a 
naked house, standing far from neighbours, and much further from honest 
men:" and in the Epistle at Randome he declared, that he knew no 
person in authority, within many miles of his residence in Hampshire, 
with whom he could more comfortably converse than with an open 
enemy. — p. 13. 



176 GEORGE WITHER. 






In the Topographical Miscellanies, quoted by Park, 
he is conjectured to have been united to Catherine 
Chester, of Woolvesly, near Winchester, in 1657. But 
this lady has no claim upon our poet. We learn from 
Aubrey, that he married Elizabeth Emerson, of South 
Lambeth, who was a " great wit, and could write in 
verse too." Her talents and virtues were her only 
dowry, for he says, in Salt upon Salt, 

- Nor by wiving, 



Which is to some a sudden way of thriving, 
Was my estate repair d. 

Of her domestic tenderness and excellence, Wither has 
left many interesting memorials. As " woman, mistress, 
mother, wife," she discharged her duty with piety -, un- 
wearied in doing good, her hand was ever ready to 
assist the neighbouring poor ; the morning found her 
" first to wake," at " night her candle went not out." 
This excellent woman recovered from her illness, and 
her grateful husband composed a Thanksgiving to God 
upon the occasion. 

The absence of the poet's wife was not his only afflic- 
tion 5 — he was supported in Newgate by some of his 
relations, who, as he pathetically acknowledged, were 
scarcely able to maintain themselves ; and not unfre- 
quently, in the solitude of his cell, he reflected upon the 
injury his imprudent conduct had inflicted upon them. 
The destitute condition of his wife and surviving children 
was also a frequent subject of meditation and prayer. 
In the Improvement of Imprisonment are many affecting 
compositions of this kind : the following very touching 
verses may be taken as a specimen : — 



GEORGE WITHER. 177 

Thereof be therefore heedful, 

Them favour not the less, 
Supply with all things needful 

In this our great distress. 
And when Thou me shalt gather, 

Out of this Land of Life, 
Be Thou my children's Father, 

A Husband to my wife *. 

"When I to them must never 
Speak more with tongue or pen, 

And they be barr'd for ever 
To see my face again. 

Preserve them from each folly, 

Which, ripening into sin, 
Makes root and branch unholy, 

And brings destruction in. 
Let not this world bewitch them 

With her besotting wine, 
But let Thy grace enrich them 

With faith and love divine. 

And whilst we live together, 

Let us upon Thee call, 
Help to prepare each other, 

For what may yet befall : 
So just, so faithful-hearted, 

So constant let us be, 
That when we here are parted, 

We may all meet in Thee. 

How constantly the spiritual well-doing of his children 
was his anxious theme, will be seen from an epistle ad- 
dressed to them from Newgate, 15th of February, 1662. 

* In the beautiful letter addressed to his wife by Sir Walter Raleigh, 
when under the fear of immediate execution, he says, after alludirig to 
the vanity of human life : — " Teach your son, also, to love and fear God 
while he is yet young, that the fear of God may grow up with him, and 
then God will be a Husband to you, and a Father to him; — a Husband 
and a Father that cannot be taken from you." Quarles, in his Prayers 
and Meditations y frequently uses the same image. 

N 



178 GEORGE WITHER. 

To my Dearly Beloved Children, 

About twenty years now past, though I had then 
temporal possessions, which I might probably have given and 
bequeathed; I composed and intended for your legacy, A 
Soliloquy and Prayer, which I had spread in writing before 
God on your behalfes ; and I believe it shall continue for ever 
in his view. But there being but one copy thereof, both you 
and I were deprived of that composure, when the book for 
which I here suffer was taken out of my closet. Therefore 
being now likely to be so separated from you, how much 
soever it may concern our temporal or spiritual well-beings, 
that I may, perhaps, thenceforth never see you more, I send 
you this sacrifice of praise and prayer, next following, to be 
instead of that which is lost ; for it contains in effect some- 
what (as to the petitionary part) of that which was spread 
before God (as aforesaid) in a larger scroll. Take it into your 
serious considerations, and lay it up among your evidences ; 
for it will speak to your advantage, when I can speak no more 
for you ; when other men, who can speak for you, will not ; 
when many, perhaps, will speak against you, and when you 
shall not be able to speak for yourselves. 

God sanctify unto you this brief memorandum, and you to 
his glory, that we may all meet together in Him to our ever- 
lasting joy. Be obedient to your mother, the enjoyment of 
whose company will more than recompense the loss of mine ; 
for God hath endowed her with so much natural prudence and 
love, that by her counsel (if you despise it not) your posterity 
may be continued on the earth, until Christ comes to gather 
together his elect. Remember the counsel of your earthly 
father, that the promise made by your heavenly Father to the 
Rechabites may be enlarged to you and your posterity, for 
your and their personal obedience to God's covenant made with 
all mankind in Christ Jesus (according to that assisting grace 
which He vouchsafed), toward the accomplishing of what I 
have prayed for concerning you. The blessing of God be with 
you, and farewell. Your affectionate Father, 

Newgate, Feb. 15, 1662. Geo. Wither*. 

* From the Private Meditations, reprinted 1666, first printed in 1665. 



GEORGE WITHER. 179 

On the afternoon of the 24th of March, he was brought 
from Newgate to the bar of the House of Commons, and 
the libel having been shown him, he acknowledged 
" that the same might be in his hand, but that it was 
but parcel of what he intended 3 and the other writing 
being shown to him, he confessed the same to be of his 
own hand- writing." Henry Northrop and Robert Hey- 
borne were then called in, and they deposed that they 
" took the said papers from under Mr. Withers his 
hand, and that he was writing part of them just when 
they were taken from him." At the conclusion of the 
examination, it was resolved that Wither should be 
delivered " to the Lieutenant of the Tower, there to be 
kept in close custody, and be denied pen, ink, and paper, 
and debarred from having any company to come unto 
him 3" and it was referred to the Solicitor- General to 
draw up an impeachment, and report it to the House at 
their next meeting. These severe commands seem to 
have been implicitly followed 3 even his "black-lead" 
was taken away, and he had no resource but to scrawl 
his verses with an " oker-pencil" upon three trenchers, 
which were carried by the keeper to the Lieutenant of 
the Tower. He was at this time an object of so much 
notoriety, that the " diurnal- women" cried the news of 
his impeachment for treason about the streets. 

The House reassembled on the 3d of April, when it 
was ordered, that the " thanks of this House be returned 
to his Majesty for his grace and favour, in causing George 
Withers to be apprehended and detained in custody for 
the seditious libel by him contrived against the members 
of this House 3" and Lord Falkland was directed to 
cany the address to his Majesty. Nothing more, how- 
ever, seems to have been said of the impeachment 3 and 

n 2 



180 GEORGE WITHER. 

on the 9th of April, upon consideration of a petition 
presented on behalf " of George Wither, now a prisoner 
in the Tower/' it was ordered that his wife should be 
admitted to visit him, with a view of eliciting from him 
a "recantation and submission for the misdemeanour 
for which he was committed." But her efforts were 
slow in producing the required confession, and it was 
not until the 27th of July, 1 663, that he was directed to be 
discharged, giving bond to the Lieutenant of the Tower 
for his good behaviour*. Mr. Campbell does not appear 
to have been aware of this release, for he improperly 
concludes that the poet died in prison. 

The MS. pamphlet, for which he underwent this long 
and severe imprisonment, was addressed to the Lord 
Chancellor Clarendon 5 and it is impossible to account 
for the vindictive tyranny with which an offence of such 
slight comparative turpitude was visited. As the work 
was never printed, it could not be said to have done 
•any injury. 

Neither age nor sufferings had any effects upon the 
fluency of his pen. Soon after his discharge, perceiving 
the growing differences between this country and Hol- 
land, he sounded his Tuba Pacifica, or Trumpet of Peace ,- 
and when the public mind was agitated by the expecta- 
tion of an engagement between the English and Dutch 
fleets, he "breathed out" some dull Sighs for the Pitchers ; 
two pitchers being the emblems by which the rival 
nations were represented on the title-page. 

Wither, whose narrative of the Plague in 1625 has 
been already noticed, was doomed to be a second time 
the spectator of its dreadful ravages. The pestilence 

* Aubrey says that he was imprisoned in the Tower about three 
quarters of a year ; but this is a mistake, for his confinement lasted near 
sixteen months. 



GEORGE WITHER. 181 

broke out in April, and in June he seems to have escaped 
its fury 5 for he observes in the Memorandum to London, 
p. 28,, " God be praised, not so much as one hath been 
sick of any disease in my house since the plague began, 
nor is it, to my knowledge, near my habitation." But 
he afterwards suffered from the visitation. In the pre- 
amble to the Meditation upon the Lord's Prayer, he says, 
(C During the great mortality yet continuing, and wherein 
God evidently visited his own household, my little 
family, consisting of three persons only, was visited, 
and, with my dear consort, long engaged in daily ex- 
pectation of God's divine purpose concerning our per- 
sons • yet, with confidence, whether we were smitten or 
spared, lived, or died, it would be in mercy 3 for having 
nothing to make us in love with the world, we had 
placed our best hopes upon the world to come." His 
solitary seclusion was, in some measure, alleviated by 
the composition of the Meditations on the Lord's Prayer. 
c< Providence," he tells us, " inclined my heart to con- 
template the aforesaid prayer, when I seemed but ill- 
accommodated to prosecute such an undertaking • for it 
was in the eleventh climacteric al year of my life, and 
when, beside other bodily infirmities, I was frequently 
assaulted with such as were, perhaps, pestilential symp- 
toms ; and the keeping of two fires requiring more than 
my income seemed likely to maintain, I prosecuted my 
Meditations all the day, even in that room wherein my 
family and all visitants talked and despatched their 
affairs, yet was neither diverted nor discomposed thereby j 
but, by God's assistance, finished my undertaking within 
a short time after the recovery of my servant, whose 
life God spared." 

The plague and the fire, which carried sorrow and 



182 GEORGE WITHER. 

death into so many families,, did their work upon our 
poet's friends. In the Fragmenta Prophetica, collected by 
his own hand a little before his death, he says that 
many of his friends being dead, "some impoverished, 
and the remainder, for the most part, so scattered since 
the late pestilence and fire, that nor he nor they then 
knew where to find each other, without much difficulty ; 
he being wearied, and almost worn out, is constrained 
to prepare a resting-place for himself and his consort, 
which he hath prepared at a lonely habitation in his 
native country (where he neither had nor looked for much 
respect), and is resolved to retire there with as much 
speed as he can, to wait upon God's future dispensations 
during the remainder of his life." But, in the post- 
script to the same volume, we are told, what, indeed, 
few are ignorant of, that the uncertainty and change- 
ableness of all temporal things make us accordingly 
mutable in our purposes, and that the author had been 
dissuaded from his retirement " to a solitary habitation 
in the place of his nativity" by the advice of his friends 
in London. 

These were some of the last words traced by the 
poet's pen $ the path had gradually been growing rougher 
and more painful, as he wound deeper into the vale of 
years ; but we gather from the Paraphrase on the Ten 
Commandments, published by his daughter in 1688, that 
his aged hand continued almost to the last hour of his 
existence to labour in that cause, to which he gloried 
that he had devoted the morning of his days. He 
expired on the 2d of May, 1667, and was buried between 
the east door and south end of the church belonging to 
the Savoy Hospital in the Strand. 

Wither had six children, only two of whom were 



GEORGE WITHER. 183 

living in 1662*, both advantageously married 5 his 
daughter, when, through her father's misfortunes, she 
was left entirely portionless, having been " espoused 
into a loving family." This child alone survived him, 
and from her publication of his Divine Poems, we may 
conclude that his affectionate partner had preceded him 
to the tomb. 

Of Wither' s personal appearance, the portrait copied 
for this volume from a fine engraving by J. Payne f, 
prefixed to the Emblems, affords an interesting repre- 
sentation. We recognise in his manly features the 
" honest George Withers," of the celebrated Baxter. In 
the poem accompanying the portrait, he says of himself: 

For though my gracious Maker made me such, 
That where I love, beloved I am as much 
As I desire ; yet form nor feature are 
Those ornaments in which I would appear 
To future times, — though they were found in me 
Far better than I can believe they be : — 
Much less affect I that which each man knows 
To be no more but counterfeits of those, 
Wherein the painter's, or the gravers tool, 
Befriends alike the wise man, and the fool ; 
And if they please, can give him by their art, 
The fairest face, that had the falsest heart. 

If, therefore, of my labours, or of me, 

Ought shall remain, when I removed shall be, 

* We learn this from his own epitaph, written by himself in 1664-5 : 
Beside the issue of my brain, 
I had six children, whereof twain 
Did live, when we divided were. 
Both marriages were performed during his imprisonment, and they 
" kept their weddings" in his plundered house, which was so destitute, 
that his wife had nothing to entertain them with, not "even a dish or 
spoon, but what a neighbour lent." — Three Meditations. 

t There is another by F. Delaram, and one in 8vo. by W. Holle, 
which has been engraved for the British Bibliographer, — Bliss's edition 
of Wood's Athen. Oxon. 



184 GEORGE WITHER. 

Let it be that wherein it may be view'd 

My Maker s image was in me renewed ; 

And to declare a dutiful intent 

To do the work I came for, ere I went, 

That I to others may some pattern be, 

Of doing well, as other men to me 

Have been whilst I had life, and let my days 

Be summed up to my Redeemers praise — 

So this be gained, I regard it not, 

Though all that I am else be quite forgot. 

His manners were, like his poetry, simple and un- 
ostentatious $ the lines in which he ridiculed the fawning 
adulation of the age are quoted by Baxter : 

When any bow'd to me with congees trim, 
All I could do was stand and laugh at him : — 
Bless me ! I thought, what will this coxcomb do ? 
When I perceived one reaching at my shoe. 

He was temperate in his habits ; for life, he said, was 
preserved with a little matter, and that content might 
dwell with coarse cloth and bread and water. Like 
Milton, he indulged in the luxury of smoking 3 and 
many of his evenings in Newgate, when weary of num- 
bering his steps, or telling the panes of glass*, were 
solaced with "meditations over a pipe," not without a 
grateful acknowledgement of God's mercy in thus wrap- 
ping up " a blessing in a weed." 

In his performance of the duties of private life he 
was irreproachable : while the sun rarely went down 
upon his wrath, his friendship lasted for years. The 
kindness of Westrow was always remembered with un- 
diminished gratitude. His love to his wife and children 
was constant and unchanging $ at a period when every 

* Improvement of Imprisonment, p. 98. 



GEORGE WITHER. 185 

man's hand was against his neighbour, it is delightful to 
recollect that one family was united in the bond of 
Christian amity, and that while the night without was 
dark and tempestuous, the humble charities of the 
poet's fire-side were preserved inviolate. 

If we pass from his private to his public character, 
the contemplation is not so pleasing. As a politician 
he was weak and inconsistent, a reed shaken by every 
wind. E chard called him a dangerous incendiary, and 
said that he was capable of doing a great deal of 
mischief. Yet he never became the fosterer of crime, 
or the apologist of tyranny. He lived, he tells us, 
under eleven different governments — Elizabeth, James, 
Charles the First, the King and Parliament together, the 
Parliament alone, the Army, Oliver Cromwell, Richard 
Cromwell, a Council of State, the Parliament again, and 
Charles the Second. In his youth, and for many years 
after, we have seen him the admirer of the Monarchy, 
and if he forsook the cause of royalty, it should not be 
forgotten that he did not long remain with the Parlia- 
ment ) if he became the eulogist of Cromwell, he at the 
same time spoke to him boldly of his errors. Unlike 
contemporary rhymers, his flattery seldom degenerated 
into adulation — he always mixed wormwood with the 
wine. The man who could indignantly return to the 
Protector, when in the zenith of his power, the key of 
his private closet at Whitehall, given as a mark of pecu- 
liar favour, was no common individual. His numerous 
pamphlets, with few exceptions, cannot be numbered 
among the controversial fruits of the age 3 they are 
usually devoted to the expression of his own wrongs, 
and more frequently deserve the name of Ribble- 
Rabblements bestowed on them by himself, than any 



186 GEORGE WITHER. 

more honourable appellation. They have none of the 
menace and defiance, the " trample and spurn" of the 
polemical Milton. By some he was called a puritan, by 
others a presbyterian, but his own words show that he 
was neither. "I am not/' he said, "for or against the 
Presbyterians, Independents, King, Parliament, mem- 
bers, or people, more or less than in my judgment may 
conduct to the wrong or right way — from or toward the 
truth of God." Of the royal power he desired a re- 
formation, not an extirpation *, and he drew up a petition 
against the execution of Charles the First, but could not 
find any member bold enough to present it. 

In his earlier days he had been noticed by the High 
Church party, and in later times, the leaders of the 
Republican administration thought him worth their 
regard. He says that he was known " to the greatest 
number of the most considerable persons in the nation," 
and had familiarity with many of them, not " without 
some appearance of good respect." In the list of his 
political acquaintance we have found Oliver Cromwell, 
Lord Essex, Sir Gilbert Pickering, &c. j and he whom 
the Protector honoured with frequent invitations to his 
own table, and did not hesitate to soothe by personal 
visits, must have possessed no little influence. It speaks 
powerfully for his honesty, that he subsequently 
forfeited the favour of Cromwell. 

His religious feelings are hardly less difficult accu- 
rately to define than his political sentiments. He was, 
almost up to the breaking out of the civil war, a follower 



* Furor Poeticus, p. 33, and again in the Epistle at Randome, p. 15, — 
" For I never was absolutely for or against a King, or Commonwealth, 
with or without a single person, but according as God's extraordinary 
dispensations, the present necessities, the law of common justice, and 
the people's assent in Parliament, made it expedient or not expedient." 



GEORGE WITHER. 187 

of the established church, and although solicited by the 
seductive offers of numerous Sectaries, he still con- 
tinued to hold fast the faith of his fathers. But Repub- 
licanism and Episcopacy could not subsist together ; yet 
he might be said to have forsaken the outward forms of 
our church rather than its ordinances. When ques- 
tioned as to his belief, he answered that he called him- 
self a Catholic Christian, a title not affected out of any 
singularity, but "by way of distinction" only. "I se- 
parate myself," he says, " from no church adhering to 
the foundations of Christianity ; I waive the confining 
my belief or practice to any one national or congrega- 
tional society of Christians, not out of a factious incli- 
nation or petulant disesteem of any $ but having a desire 
to be instrumental in uniting men dissenting in judg- 
ment both unto God and each other in love, I conceive 
that endeavour would be suspected of partiality, and not 
so effectually prosecuted if I made myself party with 
any one fraternity more than another. True faith can- 
not be evidenced without good works, which being im- 
perfect in the best of men, we have no such certain mark 
whereby unfeigned disciples may be known, as by their 
being loving to each other and charitably affected toward 
all men 5 yea, although they are our personal enemies *." 
We may admire the piety of this passage without con- 
fessing the justness of the reasoning; we discern in the 
poet's mild and Christian declaration, none of the gloom 
of the ascetic, or the harshness of the intolerant bigot. 
To be of no church, it has been excellently observed, is 
dangerous -, all men cannot, like Milton, preserve " a 
religion of the heart;" and even in his case we find more 
to regret than to admire. Wither has left abundant 

* An Answer to some Objections, reprinted 1666. 



188 GEORGE WITHER. 

testimony to prove the sincerity of his religious profes- 
sions. If he did not endure his misfortunes in silence, 
at least he braved them with fortitude j if, amid the 
overwhelming perils of the country, he too often sat 
down on his own "little bundle of thorns*/' it may be 
urged in his behalf, that he suffered much and long. In 
the resolution with which he fulfilled what he considered 
the commission intrusted to him from above, we trace 
something of primitive singleness of heart. For nearly 
half a century he was a " watchman for the nation," un- 
ceasingly warning it of its vices and crimes. Through 
the dangers of the pestilence, and all the changes of 
Government, he pursued the same course 5 often, indeed, 
drawn aside by the importunities and weaknesses of 
heart, to whose charming no human ear can be utterly 
deaf, but always returning, after a little while, to his 
labours. Though the storm of adversity might beat 
upon his spirits, it could not subdue them 5 he walked 
with untired feet, 

— The solitary path 

Of disrespect : 
at ■ one time threatened with " loss of limb and tor- 
tures," at another, glad to escape from his enemies only 
with "life and raiment." He was imprisoned in the 
Marshalsea, Newgate, and in the Tower, frequently with- 
out any means of procuring the common necessaries of 
life. If he murmured, he did not faint 5 in the midst of 
all his persecutions he derived peace and consolation 
from a sincere reliance on the mercy of Heaven, often 
exclaiming that he was "excellently sad," and that God 
infused such happiness into his heart, that grief became 
to him " Comfort's mother." Under one of his heaviest 
calamities he could exclaim — 

* Jeremy Tavlor. 



GEORGE WITHER. 189 

But Lord, though in the dark 
And in contempt thy servant lies, 

On me there falls a spark 

Of loving-kindness from thine eyes. 

While lauding his virtues, I am far from being blind 
to his errors. Had Wither remembered the sacred 
command, Do not evil that good may come, many of his 
follies would not have been committed. He would then 
have been more temperate in his satire, more steadfast 
in his politics, and more decided in his religion. The 
best apology which can now be offered, is contained in 
his own affecting words. " Be it considered that some 
of these books were composed in his unripe age • some 
when wiser men than he erred ; and that there is in all 
of them somewhat savouring of a natural spirit, and 
somewhat dictated by a better spirit than his own." 

Upon the merits of his poetry it is unnecessary to 
dilate. His early compositions were not, perhaps, suf- 
ficiently popular to operate very powerfully on the 
public taste, but in the Shepherd's Hunting, the Mistress 
of P hilar ete, and the Shepherd's Pipe, the correctness and 
finish of Denham and Waller were united to a natural 
grace and melody of style to which they have not an 
equal claim. His touches of rural simplicity have never 
been surpassed 5 in his hand the pastoral reed seemed 
not to have forgotten the lip of Spenser. 

As a sacred poet, Wither is entitled to a distinguished 
place among his contemporaries. If he does not awe the 
soul with the majesty of Milton, or crush it with the 
iron energy of Quarles, or force the tears of rapture into 
our eyes with the pathos of Crashaw, yet his words 
come home to every bosom, and no man ever poured 
the balm of holy truth into a wounded heart with a 



190 GEORGE WITHER. 

more affectionate hand. He had been taught sympathy 
in a good school, the school of adversity. He was in 
his own day, we are told, a favourite with young readers ; 
and the purity and love of virtue manifested in all he 
wrote, rendered him a meet companion. The elements 
of his art were few 3 his verses contain no skilful com- 
binations of imagery, or metaphors elaborated with a 
painful ingenuity 5 he showed us that the tree of poetry 
never nourishes with greener beauty, than when deeply 
rooted in the common joj^s and sorrows of humanity. 
The Muse never appeared to him in so beautiful a form, 
or with so endearing a manner, as when she brightened 
the chamber of the Marshalsea with her presence ; but 
though, in after-times, he devoted his pen to pursuits 
which he hoped would prove more beneficial to the 
world, the fervour and unaffectedness of his youthful 
strains were not entirely destroyed. While the wit and 
fancy of Cowley were being chilled into cold and glitter- 
ing eccentricities ; while Donne was torturing his erudi- 
tion into fantastic images, and Jonson was encumber- 
ing his imagination with the treasures of a far-gathered 
learning, Wither remained faithful to the early models 
of nature and truth. In the Halleluiah, published when 
he was fifty-three years old, the sincerity and earnestness 
of his heart are still fresh and vigorous. 

Among his poetical friends, in addition to those 
already mentioned, were the well-known Michael Dray- 
ton 3 Thomas Cranley, whom he styled his brother, 
the writer of a play called Amanda ,• Hayman, the author 
of the Quodlibets * -, and Christopher Brooke, a com- 

* Hayman was for some time Governor of the Plantations in New- 
foundland, where he composed the greater part of his verses. He was, 
also, a friend of Vicars, who honoured him with an Acrostic Sonnet. 



GEORGE WITHER. 191 

panion of Browne, and a member of Lincoln's Inn, 
where he became the " chamber- fellow " of Donne, with 
whom he was imprisoned, on account of that poet's im- 
prudent marriage. Wither also contributed verses to 
Carter's Most true and exact Relation of the Expedition 
of Kent, Essex, and Colchester, in 1648 5 to Butler's 
Feminine Monarchic, or the History of Bees, in 1623 *$ 
and a Latin poem, signed G. W., before Payne Fisher's 
Marston Moor, may belong to him. Fisher was the un- 
sparing magnifier of Cromwell's actions, and appears to 
have subsisted upon the proceeds of his flattery. Pepys, 
who knew him, says in his Diary, 26th July, 1660, that 
the " poet Fisher" wished on that day to borrow " a 
piece," and that he sent him "half a piece." 

In Pinkerton's preface to Ancient Scottish Songs, allu- 
sion is made to some compositions by Wither among 
the Bannatyne MSS., but it would seem from the appen- 
dix, as Park has remarked, that he can only claim a 
Scottish version of one of his celebrated songs. 

It may not be uninteresting to the reader of the pre- 
ceding memoir, to know that the poet's name is still in 
existence in his native place. When the writer was at 
Bentworth in the summer of 1833, he was surprised, on 
ascending the' steep path leading to the church, to find 
the name of Withers upon the sign-board of a little 
public house by the road- side. On inquiry he was 
informed that this individual came from the neighbour- 
hood of Farnham, in Surrey, and from the long residence 

* Some of these lines are not inelegant: — 

Great God Almighty; in thy pretty bees 
Mine eye (as written in small letters) sees 
An abstract of this wisdom, power, and love, 
Which is imprinted in the heavens above, 
In larger volumes, for their eyes to see, 
That in such little prints behold not Thee. 



192 GEORGE WITHER. 

of our poet in that part of the country, it is not impro- 
bable that the host of the Five Bells * is descended from 
the author of the Shepherd's Hunting. The same name 
also hangs before an humble inn in the quiet town of 
Alton, and one of the keepers of the gate on the road to 
Winchester owns the same appellation. 



HERRICK, HEYWOOD, 



Kc. 



Robert Herrick was born in London, towards the 
close of 1591, and about the year 1615 he was entered 
of St. John's College, Cambridge, which he left, after a 
residence of three years, for Trinity Hall, with the inten- 
tion of preparing himself for the law, and at the same 
time reducing his expenses, which were borne by his 
uncle, Sir William Herrick, who was goldsmith to James 
the First. Having relinquished the study of the law 
and applied himself to Divinity, on the elevation of Dr. 
Barnaby Potter to the See of Carlisle, he obtained the 
living of Dean Prior in Devonshire, through the interest 
of the Earl of Exeter. Here, according to Wood, "he 
exercised his Muse as well in poetry as other learning, 
and became much beloved by the gentry in those parts 
for his florid and witty discourse." But this statement 
is contradicted by Herrick himself, in the address to 
"Dean-Bourn, a rude river in Devonshire,' in which he 
describes the people to be " churlish as the seas," and 
almost as rude "as rudest savages." In 1647 or 48, he 

* I will not vouch for the accuracy of the sign ; I speak from memory, 
and the subject upon the board has been much defaced by the wind 
and weather. 



HERRICK. 193 

was ejected from his preferment by the Parliament, and 
he declared that he was " ravisht in spirit to be recalled 
from a long and irksome banishment" to the "blest 
place of his nativity." Having assumed the habit of 
a layman, he resided in St. Anne's, Westminster, where 
he was principally supported by the Royalists. At the 
Restoration he recovered his living. The period of his 
death has not been ascertained *. 

Herrick is usually admired as the gay writer of a beau- 
tiful Anacreontic Song, and one or two poems of a more 
plaintive character. The Noble Numbers, contain some 
touching strains of religious devotion. In an early 
number of the Quarterly Review, there was an account 
of a visit to Dean Prior, and of the writer's en- 
deavours to discover some memorials of the poet. 
His researches were unsuccessful, but he met with an 
old woman in the parish who repeated with great exact- 
ness and propriety five of the Noble Numbers, which 
she called her prayers, and was accustomed to recite 
to herself at night when unable to sleep. Among 
them was the following exquisite " Litany to the Holy 
Spirit:" — 

In the hour of my distress, 
When temptations me oppress, 
And when I my sins confess, 

Sweet Spirit, comfort me. 

When I lie within my bed, 
Sick at heart, and sick in head, 
And with doubts discomforted, 

Sweet Spirit, comfort me. 

* Some interesting particulars of his life, interspersed with a few most 
unpoetical letters, may be seen in the second part of the second volume 
of Nichols's History of Leicestershire, 

O 



194 HERRICK. 

When the house doth sigh and weep, 
And the world is drownd in sleep, 
Yet mine eyes the watch do keep, 

Sweet Spirit, comfort me. 

When the passing hell doth toll, 
And the Furies in a shoal, 
Come to fright a parting soul, 

Sweet Spirit, comfort me. 

When the tapers now burn blue, 

And the comforters are few, 

And that number more than true ; 

Sweet Spirit, comfort me. 

When the priest his last hath pray'd, 
And I nod to what is said, 
Because my speech is now decay *d, 

Sweet Spirit, comfort me. 

When the Tempter me pursuth, 
With the sins of all my youth, 
And half damns, me with untruth, 

Sweet Spirit, comfort me, 

When the flames and hellish cries, 
Fright mine ears, and fright mine eyes, 
And all terrors me surprise, 

Sweet Spirit, comfort me. 

When the judgment is reveal'd, 
And that open d which was seaFd, 
When to Thee I have appeaFd, 

Sweet Spirit, comfort me*. 

The Thanksgiving for his House is too long to be ex- 
tracted, but one stanza may be quoted, to show its 
peculiar merits : — 

* The fourth and fifth stanzas are omitted. 



HERRICK. 195 

Low is my porch, as is ray fate, 

Both void of state : 
And yet the threshold of ray door 

Is worne by the poor. 

The Dirge of JephtJia is also beautiful 5 the classical 
reader will notice the Graecisrn in these lines : — 

Thou wonder of all maids li'st here, 
Of daughters all, the dearest dear ; 
The eye of virgins, nay the Queen 
Of this smooth green, 
And all sweet meads from whence we get 
The primrose and the violet. 

If to these poems we add the Christmas Carol, the Star- 
Song, and the White Island, or Place of the Blest, I think 
it will be granted that Herrick's most lasting fame is 
derived from his sacred compositions. The sentiments 
of some of his songs have unfortunately disposed us to 
regard him as the reverse of a religious poet 5 but he has 
told us, that although his rhymes were wild, ' c his life was 
chaste 3" and impurity, we may believe, could never lin- 
ger long in a mind that could give utterance to thoughts 
of so much feeling. Let us hope that when, in his touch- 
ing words (to God in his sickness), he made his home 
in darkness and sorrow, the mercy of Him in whom 
he trusted, did indeed renew him, even although "a 
withered flower*." 

* His Prayer for Absolution is full of piety : — 
For these my unbaptized rhymes, 
Writ in my wild unhallow'd times, 
For every sentence, clause, and word, 
That's not inlaid with thee, O Lord, 
Forgive me, God, and blot each line 
Out of my book that is not thine ; 
But if 'mongst all thou findest one 
Worthy thy benediction, 
That one of all the rest shall be 
The glory of my work, and me. 

o 2 



196 HEYWOOD. 

Thomas Heywood was one of the most prolific dra- 
matists in an age abounding in works of that descrip- 
tion. He says, in the preface to the English Traveller, 
that he had " an entire hand, or at least a main finger/' 
in two hundred and twenty plays. His copiousness was 
not the result of weakness. Charles Lamb has com- 
mended, in fitting terms, that tearful pathos which cuts 
to the heart. But his name is only admitted into these 
pages in the more honourable character of a Sacred 
Poet. The Hier archie of the Blessed Angels was pub- 
lished in 1635, and dedicated to Charles the First. It 
was the produce of his old age, and he cautions the 
reader in the preface " not to expect any new conceits 
from old heads," or to look for "green fruit from 
withered branches." The melody and grace of his 
dramas will be sought for in vain 3 unlike Sir Philip 
Sidney's poet, he does not present the reader at the 
entrance of the vineyard with a bunch of grapes, so that 
" full of the delicious flavour he may long to pass in 
farther:" his manner, on the contrary, is somewhat 
harsh and unpolished, and he leads him through difficult 
and abrupt places ; but the rugged path frequently ends 
in a garden. The poem is divided into nine books, to 
each of which is appended a commentary, evincing the 
writer's intimate acquaintance with the abstruser studies 
of theology. Modern students will hardly be persuaded 
to turn to this ponderous volume, yet it would well 
repay the trouble of perusal. Some of the Meditations 
possess a stern and solemn severity. 







' txxi N I rker 



197 



FRANCIS QUARLES. 



It has been the misfortune of this poet to realize his 
own aphorism, that " Shame is the chronical disease of 
popularity, and that from fame to infamy is a beaten 
road. 1 ' The favourite of Lord Essex, and the "some- 
times darling," of the "plebeian judgments *," is now- 
known to many only in the ridicule of Pope. But 
Quarles will live in spite of the Dunciad. His manly 
vigour, his uncompromising independence, his dis- 
interested patriotism, and his exalted piety, cannot 
be entirely forgotten. These are flowers whose blos- 
soms no neglect can wither. 

Francis Quarles was born in the spring of 1592, at 
Stewards f, in Romford Town Ward, in the county of 
Essex. He was descended from a family of great re- 
spectability, and possessing estates in the adjoining 
parishes of Hornchurch, Dagenham, &c. His father, 
James Quarles, was Clerk of the Green Cloth and 
Purveyor of the Navy to Queen Elizabeth. He died, 
November the 1 6th, 1 642, and his death is registered 
in the church of Romford. Our poet received his 
early education at a school in the country, probably in 
the neighbourhood, and is said to have " surpassed all 
his equals." He was subsequently entered of Christ's 
College, Cambridge, but whether he took any degree, 
I have not been able to discover with certainty. He 
was a resident member of the University in 1608. 

From Cambridge he went to Lincoln's Inn, where for 

* Anthony Wood. 

f A manor purchased by his father in 1588. 



198 FRANCIS QTJARLES. 

some years, as we are informed by his widow, u he studied 
the laws of England, not so much out of desire to benefit 
himself thereby, as his friends and neighbours, but to 
compose suits and differences between them 3" so early 
did the love of peace and virtue awake in his bosom. 
As he grew older, his attachment to the serene pleasures 
of a quiet life increased. " He was neither so unfit for 
Court preferment, nor so ill-beloved there," says his 
widow, "but that he might have raised his fortunes 
thereby, if he had had any inclination that way: but his 
mind was chiefly set upon devotion and study, yet not 
altogether so much but that he faithfully discharged the 
place of Cup-bearer to the Queen of Bohemia." Of his 
appointment to this office, I have not met with any 
contemporary account. Miss Benger, in her amusing 
Memoirs of Elizabeth, does not even mention his name. 
Quarles may have been an actor in the splendid pageant 
prepared by the members of Lincoln's Inn, in honour of 
the nuptials of the Princess, and which is said by Win- 
wood to have " given great content." The fancy of the 
youthful poet could hardly fail of being fascinated by 
one who was beautiful enough to win the heart, and 
accomplished and amiable enough to retain it. Her 
name was dear to all the poets of the age. That lovely 
Canzo of Sir Henry Wotton, beginning, " You meaner 
beauties of the night," was composed to grace " this most 
illustrious Princess 3" and Donne, when he visited her 
in Holland, derived "new life" from the contemplation 
of the happiness of "his most dear Mistress," How 
long Quarles continued with the Queen is uncertain. 
Mr. Chalmers conjectures that he left her service on the 
ruin of the Elector's affairs, and went over to Ireland. 
This seems probable, for we find him in Dublin in the 



FRANCIS QUARLES. 199 

spring of 1621, from which place he dates his Argalus 
and Parthenia, on the 4th of March in that year. His 
connexion with the learned Usher may have com- 
menced at this period, although we possess no informa- 
tion on the subject. 

In his youth, Usher had cultivated the Muse, and we 
may conclude, from the interesting anecdote commu- 
nicated to Aubrey by Sir John Denham, that he had 
been acquainted with the author of the Faerie Queen. 
When Sir William Davenant's Gondibert appeared, Den- 
ham asked the Bishop if he had seen it. " Out upon 
him with his vaunting preface," he replied 5 "he speaks 
against my old friend, Edmund Spenser." But (Juarles 
had qualities more calculated than a poetical fancy to 
attract the great Prelate's regard 3 unaffected piety, un- 
wearied industry, and much rapidity and excellence in 
prose composition. When he published the History of 
Argalus and Parthenia, Usher was only recently returned 
to Ireland, on his elevation to the see of Meath; and 
in the preface, the poet speaks of the work as the " fruit 
of a few broken hours." It is clear, therefore, that he 
was employed in severer studies. The poem, he tells 
us, was " a scion" lately taken out of Sir Philip Sidney's 
orchard, and " grafted on a crab -stick of his own." The 
fruit in Sidney's Arcadia has been oftener praised than 
tasted, and Quarles's "scion" has shared a similar fate. 
Yet the Fair Parthenia must have been favourably re- 
ceived, for the poet's son, John, published a continua- 
tion of it in 1659*. 

But this was not his first production : he had before 

* There was also a play of the same name. Pepys says in his Diary, 
January 31, 1660, — " To the theatre, and there sat in the pit among the 
company of fine ladies, and the house was exceeding full to see Argalus 
and Parthenia, the first time that it hath been acted." 



200 FRANCIS QUARLES. 

written the Feast of Worms, or the History of Jonah, 
which must have been the earliest effort of his pen, for 
he calls it his "Morning Muse." In this singular 
poem, his merits and defects are curiously mingled 5 
there is the same strength, frequently degenerating into 
coarseness, and the same freedom of touch, and breadth 
of colouring. The sleepy man whose arms 



Enfolded knit 



A drowsy knot upon his careless breast ; 
and the herd of deer, which startled 

at the fowlers piece, or yelp of hound, 



Stand fearfully at gaze — 

are natural and pleasing images. 

About the same time he wrote the Quintessence of 
Meditation, and the History of Queen Esther, 

His next work was a paraphrase upon Job, interspersed 
with original meditations. Of this composition, Fuller, 
the church-historian, thought very highly. The author 
in his preface calls it a "work difficult and intricate ;" 
and in the imitative parts he was less successful than 
in those more strictly original. Passages in the Medita- 
tions read like fragments from an uncorrected copy of 
Pope's Essay on Man-, they have the strength and rough- 
ness which we may suppose to have existed in the 
draught of that poem, before it grew into perfect har- 
mony beneath the lingering hand of the writer. In the 
midst of much that is valueless, the mind of the reader 
is continually startled by pictures of fearful magnificence, 
or refreshed by touches of pure and gentle description. 
The fine fable of the Gorgon's head has never been 
more grandly applied than in these verses, addressed to 
one deprived of a dear friend. 



FRANCIS QUARLES. 201 

Advance the shield of Patience to thy head, 

And when Grief strikes, 'twill strike the striker dead. 

And the comparison, in the third Meditation, of the 
long- suffering of God to the affectionate care of a nurse, 
is tenderly worked out: — 

Even as a nurse whose child's imperfect pace 
Can hardly lead his foot from place to place, 
Leaves her fond kissing, sets him down to go, 
Nor does uphold him for a step or two : 
But when she finds that he begins to fall, 
She holds him up, and kisses him withal ; — 
So God from man sometimes withdraws his hand 
Awhile, to teach his infant faith to stand, 
But when he sees his feeble strength begin 
To fail, he gently takes him up again. 

The plague in 1625, bereaved our poet of one of his 
best and most esteemed friends, the son of Bishop 
Aylmer, and he honoured his memory with a collection 
of Elegies, which must ever be numbered among the 
most precious tributes of sincere affection, to be found 
in our language. He gave them the quaint title of 
"An Alphabet of Elegies upon the much and truly 
lamented death of that famous for learning, piety, and 
true friendship, Doctor Ailmer, a great favourer and fast 
friend to the Muses, and late Archdeacon of London." 

Imprinted in his heart, that ever loves his memory. 

They are introduced with this short and affecting 
address : — 

"Readers, — Give me leave to perform a necessary 
duty, which my affection owes to the blessed memory 
of that reverend Prelate, my much honoured friend, 
Doctor Ailmer. He w 7 as one whose life and death made 
as full and perfect a story of worth and goodness, as 



202 FRANCIS aUARLES. 

earth would suffer, and whose pregnant virtues deserve 
as faithful a register as earth can keep. In whose happy 
remembrance I have here trusted these Elegies to time 
and your favour. Had he been a lamp to light me 
alone, my private griefs had been sufficient j but being a 
sun whose beams reflected on all, all have an interest in 
his memory." 

We know that "true worth and grief were parents" 
to these tears. Strype has related some interesting 
anecdotes of Dr. Aylmer, in the Life of Bishop Aylmer*. 
Quarles might well call him a "great favourer and fast 
friend to the Muses:" his charity was extended not 
only to the poor of his own neighbourhood, but to all 
who needed it 3 to indigent scholars and strangers, 
especially, his hand and heart were ever open. Fugitives 
from Spain, Holland, France, Italy, and Greece, were all 
received with kindness and hospitality 5 for he remem- 
bered that his father had once been an exile for his 
religion. Besides his numberless private acts of bene- 
ficence, he supported several deserving Students at the 
University. The last days of this good man were 
" beautiful exceedingly." When asked how he felt, he 
answered, "I thank God, heart-whole 3" and laying one 
hand on his breast, and lifting up the other to heaven, 
he said, "The glory above giveth no room to sickness." 
And when death was rapidly approaching, — " Let my 
people know," he said, "that their pastor died un- 
daunted, and not afraid of death. I bless my God I 
have no fear, no doubt, no reluctation, but an assured 
confidence in the sin- overcoming merits of Jesus Christ." 

Quarles's verses are worthy of so noble a subject; the 
soul of solemn grief is poured into every line. The 6th 
* Oxford edition, p. 118—121. 



FRANCIS QUARLES. 203 

and 13 th Elegies will gain an increased interest from 
the truth of their allusions. Dr. Aylmer had declared 
on his death-bed, that his " own eyes " had ever been 
"his overseers/' and it is recorded that he "shut his 
own eyes with his own hands." Thus the " self- closed 
eyes " of the poet have a peculiar beauty. 

Elegy VI. 

Farewell those eyes, whose gentle smiles forsook 
No misery, taught Charity how to look. 
Farewell those cheerful eyes, that did erewhile 
Teach succour'd Misery how to bless a smile : 
Farewell those eyes, whose mixt aspect of late 
Did reconcile humility and state. 
Farewell those eyes, that to their joyful guest 
Proclaim'd their ordinary fare, a feast. 
Farewell those eyes, the loadstars late whereby 
The graces sailed secure from eye to eye. 
Farewell dear eyes, bright lamps — O, who can tell 
Your glorious welcome, or our sad farewell ! 

Elegy X. 

I wondered not to hear so brave an end, 

Because I knew, who made it, could contend 

With death, and conquer, and in open chase 

Would spit defiance in his conquer' d face — 

And did. Dauntless he trod him underneath, 

To shew the weakness of unarmed death. 

Nay, had report or niggard fame denied 

His name, it had been known that Ailmer died. 

It was no wonder to hear rumour tell 

That he, who died so oft, once died so well. 

Great Lord of Life, how hath thy dying breath 

Made man, whom Death had conquerd, conquer Death. 

Elegy VIII. 
Had virtue, learning, the diviner arts, 
Wit, judgment, wisdom (or what other parts 



204 FRANCIS QUARLES. 

That make perfection, and return the mind 

As great as earth can suffer) been confin'd 

To earth — had they the patent to abide 

Secure from change, our Ailmer ne'er had died. 

Fond earth forbear, and let thy childish eyes 

Ne'er weep for him, thou ne'er knew'st how to prize ; 

Shed not a tear, blind earth, for it appears 

Thou never lov'dst our Ailmer, by thy tears ; 

Or if thy floods must needs o'erflow their brim, 

Lament, lament thy blindness, and not him. 

Elegy XIII. 

No, no, he is not dead ; the mouth of fame, 
Honour's shrill herald, would preserve his name, 
And make it live, in spite of death and dust, 
Were there no other heaven, no other trust. 
He is not dead ; the sacred Nine deny 
The soul that merits fame should ever die. 
He lives ; and when the latest breath of fame 
Shall want her trump to glorify a name, 
He shall survive, and these self closed eyes, 
That now lie slumb'ring in the dust, shall rise, 
And, fill'd with endless glory, shall enjoy 
The perfect vision of eternal joy. 

The tautology of the concluding couplet appears to 
have escaped the poet's notice. 

In the same year he printed Sions Elegies, a para- 
phrase upon the songs of mourning " wept by Jeremie 
the prophet." In these Elegies are many noble lines: 
this sublime prayer for Divine inspiration may be offered 
as a specimen : — 

Thou, Alpha and Omega, before whom 
Things past, and present, and things yet to come, 
Are all alike ; O prosper my designs, 
And let thy spirit enrich my feeble lines. 
Revive my passion ; let mine eye behold 
Those sorrows present, which were wept of old ; 



FRANCIS QUARLES. 205 

Strike sad my soul, and give my pen the art 
To move, and me an understanding heart. 
O, let the accent of each word make known, 
I mix the tears of Sion with my own ! 

Alas ! that he who could write thus, should have sacri- 
ficed his genius to an impracticable theory ! 

In 1631, he lost his friend Drayton, whose virtues he 
commemorated in the epitaph inscribed on his monu- 
ment in Westminster Abbey. 

Do, pious marble, let thy readers know 

What they, and what their children, owe 

To Drayton s name, w r hose sacred dust 

We recommend unto thy trust. 

Protect his memory, and preserve his story, 

Remain a lasting monument of his glory. 

And when thy ruins shall disclaim 

To be the treasurer of his name, 

His name, that cannot fade, shall be 

An everlasting monument to thee. 
In the folio edition of Drayton's w T orks, 1748, these 
verses are attributed to Ben Jonson, but they are here 
given to Quarks upon the authority of his intimate 
friend, Marshall, the " stone-cutter of Fetter-Lane," 
who erected the monument, and told Aubrey that 
Quarles was the author. 

Drayton lived " at the bay-window house, next the 
east end of St. Dunstan's church, in Fleet- Street," and 
was generally beloved for the gentleness and amiability 
of his manners. The puritan and the papist united in 
his praise 5 and it has been remarked by his biographer, 
that if his morals had been worse, his fortune would 
have been better. His sacred poems, like all his longer 
productions, are tedious and diffuse 5 but they are the 
offspring of an humble and religious mind, and many 
fine thoughts, bold images, and much commanding ver- 



206 FRANCIS QUARLES. 

sification, are buried in Noah's Flood, Moses, his Birth 
and Miracles, and David and Goliah. He also composed, 
during the reign of Elizabeth, a volume of spiritual 
songs, not included in any edition of his works. 

In the same year was published the History of 
Sampson, a work valuable only for the beautiful letter in 
which it is dedicated. 

" To the uncorrupted lover of all goodness, and my 
honourable friend, Sir James Fullerton, Knight, one of 
the Gentlemen of his Majestie's Bedchamber, &c. 

' ' Sir, — There be three sorts of friends : the first is like 
a torch, we meet in a dark street ; the second is like a 
candle in a lanthorn, that we overtake ; the third is like 
a link that offers itself to the stumbling passenger. The 
met torch is the sweet- lipt friend, which lends us a flash 
of compliment for the time, but quickly leaves us to our 
former darkness ; the overtaken lanthorn is the true 
friend, which, though it promise but a faint light, yet it 
goes along with us as far as it can, to our journey's end. 
The offered link is the mercenary friend, which, though 
it be ready enough to do us service, yet that service hath 
a servile relation to our bounty. Sir, in the middle rank 
I find you, hating the first, and scorning the last 5 to 
whom, in the height of my undissembled affection, and 
unfeigned thankfulness, I commend myself and this 
book, to receive an equal censure from your uncorrupted 
judgment. In the bud it was yours, it blossomed yours, 
and now your favourable acceptance confirms the fruit 
yours, All I crave is, that you would be pleased to in- 
terpret these my intentions to proceed from an ardent 
desire, that hath long been in labour, to express the true 
affections of him, 

" That holds it an honour to honour you. 

" Francis Quarles." 



FRANCIS QUARLES. 207 

This "honourable friend" had been one of the pre- 
ceptors of the youthful Usher. 

The first edition of the Emblems is supposed to have 
appeared in 1635. Jackson, in his 29th Letter, has 
this remarkable P. S., "I should have informed you 
that these Emblems were imitated in Latin, by one 
Herman Hugo, a Jesuit. The first edition of them was 
in 1 623, soon after the appearance of Quarles. * * 
He makes no acknowledgment to Quarles, and speaks 
of his own work as original." In English poetry, at 
least, the author of the Thirty Letters had more taste 
than learning. This ' one Herman Hugo ' was a person of 
considerable eminence in his day -, he was a philosopher, 
a linguist, a theologian, a poet, and a soldier, and under 
the command of Spinola, is said to have performed 
prodigies of valour. The Pia Desideria, which suggested 
the Emblems of Quarles, obtained immense success. 

Chalmers, while escaping the error of Jackson, has 
fallen into another, though of minor importance. After 
alluding to the plates, he says, "The accompanying 
verses are entirely Quarles's." This is not correct, for 
although Quarles possessed too original a mind to follow 
servilely in the track of any man, yet he frequently 
translated whole lines, and sometimes entire passages, 
from the Pia Desideria. In general, however, the resem- 
blance is confined to a free paraphrase. Hugo has more 
Scriptural simplicity, and his occasional meanness of 
imagery and affectation of manner, are lost in the rapid 
and sonorous harmony of Latin verse. 

" These Emblems," says the writer of an article in the 
Critical Review **, " have had a singular fate : they are 
fine poems upon some of the most ridiculous prints that 

* For September, 1801, p. 45, commonly attributed to Mr. Southey. 



208 FRANCIS QUARLES. 

ever excited meriment; yet the poems are neglected, 
while the prints have been repeatedly republished with 
new illustrations. In the early part of the last century, 
a clergyman restored them to Hugo, their original 
owner, and printed with them a dull translation of 
Hugo's dull verses. They next fell into the hands of 
some methodist, who berhymed them in the very 
spirit of Sternhold 5 and this is the book which is now 
generally known by the name of Quarles. In Spain, the 
same prints have appeared, with a paraphrase of Hugo's 
verses. In Portugal, they have been twice published ; 
once by a nun who has fitted to them a mystical 
romance $ once for meditations before and after Con- 
fession and Communion, and stanzas on the same 
subjects by Father Anthony of the Wounds, a celebrated 
Semi - Irishman. 

Pope, in one of his letters to Bishop Atterbury, speak- 
ing, I suppose, contemptuously of "that great poet 
Quarles/' refers to the strange character of these illus- 
trations. Many of them are copied, in a miserable 
manner, from Hugo, and convey, it must be confessed, 
no adequate idea of the subjects they are intended to 
represent. Thus the picture on these words, "O 
wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the 
body of this death?" portrays a man sitting within a 
skeleton. And another, " O that my head were waters, 
and my eyes a fountain of tears," &c, exhibits a human 
figure, with several spouts gushing from it like the 
spouts of a fountain. And in one of the Emblems of 
the fifth book, the captivity of the soul to sin is typified 
by a youth enclosed in an immense cage. These 
evidences of ill taste in the artist are not without cor- 
respondent absurdities in the verses 5 but the volume 



FRANCIS QUARLES. 209 

contains several poems of uncommon excellence and 
originality. The following are alone sufficient to elevate 
their author to a very distinguished seat among his 
contemporaries. 

The Shortness of Life. 

And what 's a life ? A weary pilgrimage, 
Whose glory in the day doth fill the stage 
With childhood, manhood, and decrepit age. 

And what 's a life ? The nourishing array 
Of the proud summer-meadow, which to-day 
Wears her green plush, and is to-morrow hay. 

Read on this dial, how the shades devour 

My short liv'd winter's day ! hour eats up hour ; 

Alas ! the total's hut from eight to four. 

Behold these lilies, which thy hands have made 

Fair copies of my life, and open laid 

To view, how soon they droop, how soon they fade ! 

Shade not that dial, night will hlind so soon ; 
My non-ag'd day already points to noon ; 
How simple is my suit, how small my boon ! 

Nor do I beg this slender inch to wile 
The time away, or falsely to beguile 
My thoughts with joy : here's nothing worth a smile. 

Emb. iii., book 13. 

" O that thou wouldst hide me in the grave, that thou 
wouldst keep me in secret, until thy wrath be past." 

Psalm. 
Ah ! whither shall I fly ? What path untrod, 
Shall I seek out to 'scape the flaming rod 
Of my offended, of my angry God ? 

Where shall I sojourn? what kind sea will hide 
My head from thunder ? Where shall I abide 
Until his flames be quench' d, or laid aside ? 

p 



210 FRANCIS QTJARLES. 

What if my feet should take their hasty flight, 
And seek protection in the shades of night ? 
Alas ! no shades can blind the God of Light ! 

What if my soul should take the wings of day, 
And find some desert? If she springs away, 
The wings of vengeance clip as fast as they. 

What if some solid rock should entertain 
My frighted soul ? can solid rocks sustain 
The stroke of Justice, and not cleave in twain ? 

Nor sea, nor shade, nor shield, nor rock, nor cave, 

Nor silent deserts, nor the sullen grave, 

Where flame-eyed Fury means to smite, can save. 

Tis vain to flee ; till gentle Mercy shew 

Her better eye, the further off we go, 

The swing of Justice deals the mightier blow. 

Th ingenuous child, corrected, doth not fly 
His angry mother s hand, but clings more nigh, 
And quenches, with his tears, her flaming eye, 

Great God ! there is no safety here below ; 

Thou art my fortress ; Thou that seem'st my foe, 

Tis Thou that strik'st the stroke, must guard the blow. 

It is needless to dwell on the sublimity of these verses ; 
the "flame-eyed Fury/' and the sword of Justice swing- 
ing from one end of the universe to the other with 
increasing power, are images worthy of Milton or 
^Eschylus. One or two detached passages may be 
added. 

Look how the stricken hart that wounded flies 
Oer hills and dales, and seeks the lower grounds 

For running streams, the whilst his weeping eyes 
Beg silent mercy from the following hounds ; 

At length embost he droops, drops down, and lies 
Beneath the burden of his bleeding wounds. 

Emb. ii., book 4. 



FRANCIS QTJARLES. 211 

Mark how the widow' d turtle, having lost 
The faithful partner of her loyal heart, 
Stretches her feeble wings from coast to coast, 

Hunts ev'ry path, thinks every shade doth part 
Her absent love and her ; at length unsped, 
She rebetakes her to her lonely bed. 

Emb. xii., book 4. 
Mr. Jackson has pointed out the exquisite tenderness 
and originality of the turtle's belief, that " every shade 
doth part" her from her mate. 

Look how the sheep, whose rambling steps do stray 

From the safe blessing of her shepherd's eyes, 
Eftsoon become the unprotected prey 

To the wing'd squadron of beleag'ring flies ; 
Where sweltered with the scorching beams of day, 
She frisks from brook to brake, and wildly flies away 
From her own self, ev'n of herself afraid ; 
She shrouds her troubled brows in every glade, , 
And craves the mercy of the soft removing shade. 

Emb, xiv. 
The fourth line in the next stanza has been considered 
to excel the sublime picture of Ruin in the Night 
Thoughts; the last line is equally grand and impressive. 

See how the latter trumpet's dreadful blast 

Affrights stout Mars his trembling son ! 

See how he startles, how he stands aghast, 

And scrambles from his melting throne ! 

Hark how the direful hand of vengeance tears 
The swelt'ring clouds whilst heaven appears 
A circle fill'd with flame, and cent' red with his fears ! 

Emb. ix., book 2. 

The Emblems were addressed to his " beloved friend, 
Edward Benlowes," to whom he says, " you have put 
the theorbo * into my hand, and I have played 5 you 

* A kind of lute. 

p 2 



212 FRANCIS aUARLES. 

gave the musician the first encouragement; the music 
returneth to you for patronage." It was to this indi- 
vidual that Phineas Fletcher inscribed his Purple Island, 
and desired to be " known to the world by no other 
name" than his "true friend." Benlowes was a mem- 
ber of St. John's College, Cambridge, and a picture of 
him used to hang in the Master's Lodge. Born to the 
possession of a respectable estate, he became at an early 
age the patron of poets, and Brent Hall, in Essex, where 
he resided, was the scene of frequent hospitality. He 
was the author of several works, and among others of a 
poem, Theophila, or Loves Sacrifice, now exceedingly 
rare. Butler, in the character of "a small poet," 
satirized his poetical attempts with more spleen than 
propriety. Benlowes was improvident as he was generous, 
and his latter days were clouded by grief and poverty. 

The Hieroglyphics resemble the Emblems. They are 
dedicated to Mary, Countess of Dorset, whose patronage 
Drayton obtained for his Sacred Poems. From this 
lady Quarles received many favours. In the Epistle to 
the Reader, he styles the Hieroglyphics " an Egyptian 
dish drest in the English fashion." "They," he says, 
" at their feasts, used to present a Death's-head at the 
second course 5 this will serve for both." There is con- 
siderable moral dignity and ingenuity of expression in 
the third Hieroglyphic. Prefixed to it is a picture of 
the winds blowing the flame of a taper, with this motto, 
" The wind passeth over it, and it is gone." 

No sooner is this lighted taper set 

Upon the transitory stage 
Of eye-bedarkening night, 
But it is straight subjected to the threat 

Of envious winds, whose wasteful rage 



FRANCIS QUARLES. 213 

Disturbs her peaceful light, 
And makes her substance waste, and makes her flame 
less bright. 

No sooner are we born, no sooner come 
To take possession of this vast, 
This soul-afflicting earth, 
But danger meets us at the very womb ; 
And sorrow with her full-mouth' d blast 
Salutes our painful birth, 
To put out all our joys, and puff out all our mirth. 

Tost to and fro, our frighted thoughts are driven 
With ev'ry puff, with every tide 
Of life-consuming care; 
Our peaceful flame that would point up to heaven 
Is still disturb' d, and turn'd aside ; 
And every blast of air 
Commits such waste in man, as man cannot repair. 

How many "peaceful flames" have thus, in the know- 
ledge of each of us, been turned away from their heaven- 
ward course until they have become extinguished in the 
dull vapours of the earth we inhabit. 

The eccentricities of Quarles were not confined to the 
style of his poetry ; the measures in which he wrote 
were equally singular. In the Hieroglyphics he gave 
some examples of his skill in the construction of the 
pyramidal stanza. Yet there is something peculiarly 
impressive in this harmony "long drawn out/' and 
swelling by degrees into a fuller and grander tone : — 

Behold, 

How short a span 

Was long enough of old, 

To measure out the life of man ; 

In those well-tempered days, his time was then 

Survey'd, cast up, and found but three score years and ten. 



214 FRANCIS QUARLES. 

How SOON, 

Our new-born light 

Attains to full-agd noon ! 

And this, how soon, to gray-hair* d night ! 

We spring, we bud, we blossom, and we blast, 

Ere we can count our days, our days they flee so fast ! 

Hieroglyphic ix. 

In all the notices I have seen of Quarles, he is said to 
have remained in Ireland until the breaking out of the 
rebellion in 1641, and then to have fled for safety 
to England. The following extract from the Journals 
of the Court of Aldermen, kindly furnished to me 
by the City Remembrancer, will correct this mistake. 
"February 4, 1639. Item — This day, at the request of 
the Right Honourable the Earl of Dorset, signified unto 
this Court by his letter, This Court is pleased to retain 
and admit Francis Quarles to be the Cities Chronologer $ 
to have, hold, and enjoy the same place with a fee of 
one hundred nobles * per annum, during the pleasure of 
this Court, and this payment to begin from Xmas 
last." 

The office of Chronologer has been long abolished, and 
its duties are now very imperfectly understood, but they 
chiefly consisted in providing pageants for the Lord 
Mayor at stated periods ; and in the Records of the 
City of London is an entry which states that Quarles' 
predecessor was reprimanded for having omitted to 
prepare the necessary show. The salary amounted to 
33/. 6s. Sd., a considerable sum nearly two hundred 
years ago. Quarles held this situation until his death, 
and "would have given that City," says his wife " (and 

the world), a testimony that he was their faithful 

• 

* A noble was six shillings and eight-pence. 



FRANCIS QUARLES. 215 

servant therein; if it had pleased God to bless him 
with life to 'perfect what he had begun." What this 
work was, is not known; no other mention of him occurs 
in the minute-books. 

His new preferment did not make him idle. The 
Enchiridion, a collection of brief essays and aphorisms, 
came out in 1641. "If this little piece," observes Mr. 
Headley, " had been written at Athens, or Rome, its 
author would have been classed among the wise men of 
his country." It is divided into two books ; the first, 
being political, is inscribed to the young Prince Charles, 
and the second to the " fair branch of growing honour 
and virtue, Mrs. Elizabeth Usher," only daughter of the 
Archbishop. Usher was at this time in England with 
his family, and the terms in which Quarles alludes to 
him, show that their intimacy still continued. 

" Sweet Lady, 

" I present your fair hands with this my Enchiridion, 
to begin a new decade of a blest account. If it add nothing 
to your well-instructed knowledge, it may bring somewhat to 
your well-disposed remembrance ; if either, I have my end 
and you my endeavour. The service which I owe, and the 
affections which I bear your most incomparable parents, chal- 
lenge the utmost of my ability ; wherein if I could light you 
but the least step towards the happiness you aim at, how happy 
should I be ! Go forward in the way which you have chosen : 
wherein, if my hand cannot lead you, my heart shall follow you; 
and where the weakness of my power shows defect, there the 
vigour of my will shall make supply, — 

" Who am covetous of your happiness, 

"In both kingdoms and worlds, 

"Fra. Quarles/' 

A very few extracts will explain the merits of this 
volume : its great defect arises from the frequent use of 



216 FRANCIS QUARLES. 

antithesis, a fault, however, almost compensated by the 
vigour, the eloquence, and the piety of the sentiments. 
He had not been a guest at the Archbishop's table, and 
his companion in the study, without gathering some- 
thing from his stores of learning and wisdom. Dr. 
Dibdin traces a resemblance between the Enchiridion and 
the Essays of Sir William Cornwallis, the younger, the 
first edition of which appeared in 1601 -2 5 but I think 
there is much more diffuseness about Cornwallis 5 he 
has the eccentricity of Quarles without his power. The 
following specimens will, it is hoped, lead the reader to 
the work itself: — 

SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 

As thou art a moral man, esteem thyself not as thou art, 
but as thou art esteemed; as thou art a Christian, esteem 
thyself as thou art, not as thou art esteemed ; thy price in both 
rises and falls as the market goes. The market of a moral 
man is wild opinion. The market of a Christian is a good 
conscience. 

ON DEATH. 

If thou expect Death as a friend, prepare to entertain it ; if 
thou expect Death as an enemy, prepare to overcome it. Death 
has no advantage but when it comes a stranger. 

THE POWER OF CONSCIENCE. 

In the commission of evil, fear no man so much as thyself; 
another is but one witness against thee ; thou art a thousand : 
another thou may'st avoid, but thyself thou canst not. Wicked- 
ness is its own punishment. 

ON DRESS. 

In thy apparel avoid singularity, profuseness, and gaudiness. 
Be not too early in the fashion, nor too late. Decency is the 
half way between affectation and neglect. The body is the 
shell of the soul ; apparel is the husk of that shell. The husk 
often tells you what the kernel is. 

The political horizon had long been lowering, and 



FRANCIS QUARLES. 217 

Quarles, who foresaw many of the calamities which soon 
after fell upon the country, put forth a few " Thoughts 
upon Peace and War/' full of mild wisdom and christian 
patriotism. 

The "bleeding nation" was constantly at his heart. 
" His love to his king and country/' says his widow, 
" in these late unhappy times of distraction, was manifest, 
in that he used his pen, and poured out his continual 
prayers and tears, to quench this miserable fire of dissen- 
sion, while too many others added daily fuel to it." 
Some of these earnest supplications are contained in the 
Prayers and Meditations. " Bless this kingdom, O God," 
he exclaimed ; " establish it in piety, honour, peace, and 
plenty 3 forgive all her crying sins, and remove thy 
judgments far from her. * * Direct thy church in 
doctrine and discipline, and let all her enemies be con- 
verted or confounded." But the torch of discord burned 
with too fierce a flame to be extinguished by one weak 
hand. Those wild and lawless passions, which gave 
occasion to the afflicted Dr. Hammond to call his native 
land " a whole Afric of monsters, a desert of wilder 
men," were every day more fearfully developed. The 
"dove-like spirit" wandered in vain over the waste of 
waters, for it found not one olive -leaf to carry back " in 
token that men were content to hear of peace, and to 
be friends wfth God*." The humble home of the poet 
did not escape the general ruin. The publication of the 
Royal Convert, and his visit to the King at Oxford, 
attracted the angry notice of the dominant party, who 
availed themselves of their power to injure him in his 
estates. Winstanley says, that he was plundered of his 
books and some rare manuscripts, which he intended 

* See Dr. Hammond's Sermon on Jeremiah, chapter xxxi., 18, 
edition 1649. 



218 FRANCIS aUARLES. 

for the press. A severer trial soon followed. A petition 
" full of unjust aspersions was preferred against him by 
eight men (whereof he knew not any two, nor they him, 
save only by sight), and the first news of it struck him 
so to the heart that he never recovered, but said plainly 
it would be his death*." Of the precise nature of this 
fatal petition, we are ignorant; but it evidently had 
reference to his religious belief. The closing scenes of 
his life cannot be more interestingly described than in 
the words of his affectionate wife, who dwells with fer- 
vent love upon the "blessed end of her dear husband," 
which was "every way answerable to his godly life, 
or rather (indeed) surpassed it. For as gold is purified 
by the fire, so were all his Christian virtues more refined 
and remarkable during the time of his sickness. His 
patience was wonderful, insomuch that he would confess 
no pain, even then when all his friends perceived his 
disease to be mortal; but still rendered thanks to God 
for his especial love to him, in taking him into his own 
hands to chastise, while others were exposed to the 
fury of their enemies, the power of pistols, and the 
trampling of horses. 

" He expressed great sorrow for his sins, and when it 
was told him that his friends conceived he did thereby 
much harm to himself, he answered, e They were not 
his friends that would not give him leave to be penitent,' 

" His exhortations to his friends that came to visit 
him were most divine; wishing them to have a care of 
the expense of their time, and every day to call themselves to 
an account, that so when they came to their bed of sickness, 
they might lie upon it with a rejoicing heart. And, doubtless, 
such an one was his ; insomuch that he thanked God 

* Memoir by his widow, p. 15. 



FRANCIS QUARLES. 219 

that whereas he might justly have expected that his 
conscience should look him in the face like a lion, it rather 
looked upon him like a lamb; and that God had forgiven 
him his sins, and that night sealed him his pardon, and 
many other heavenly expressions to the like effect. I 
might here add, what blessed advice he gave to me in 
particular, still to trust in God, whose promise is to 
provide for the widow and the fatherless, &c. But this 
is already imprinted on my heart, and, therefore, I shall 
not need here again to insert it." 

His charity in freely forgiving his greatest enemies, 
was equally Christian-like 3 and when he heard that the 
individual, whose vindictive conduct towards him had 
been the chief cause of his illness, was " called to an 
account for it," his answer was, God forbid; I seek not 
revenge; I freely forgive him and the rest. The only 
uneasiness he endured arose from the doubts which had 
been maliciously expressed with regard to his firm de- 
votion to the Protestant church. 

" The rest of his time was occupied in contemplation 
of God and meditations upon the Holy Scriptures; 
especially upon Christ's sufferings, and what a benefit 
those have, that by faith could lay hold on him, and 
what virtue there was in the least drop of his precious 
blood; intermingling here and there many devout 
prayers and ejaculations, which continued with him as 
long as his speech j and after, as we could perceive by 
some imperfect expressions. At which time, a friend of 
his exhorting him to apply himself to finish his course 
here, and prepare himself for the world to come, he 
spake in Latin to this effect*: — sweet Saviour of the 

* O dulcis Salvator Mundi, sint tua ultima verba in Cruce, mea 
ultima verba in Luce : " In manus tuas, Do-mine, commendo spiritum 
meum. Et quae ore meo fari non possint, ab animo et corde sint a te 
accepta." 



220 FRANCIS QTJARLES. 

world, let thy last words upon the cross, be my last words 
in the world. Into thy hands, Lord, I commend my spirit ; 
and what I cannot utter with my mouth, accept from my 
heart and soul: which words being uttered distinctly, to 
the understanding of his friend, he fell again into his 
former contemplations and prayers 5 and so quietly gave 
up his soul to God, the 8th day of September, 1644, 
after he had lived two and fifty years, and lieth buried 
in the parish church of St. Leonard's, in Foster Lane." 

Such was the delightful termination of an active and 
well-spent life. Though his death was an irreparable 
loss to his family, yet it was gain to him, who, in the 
words of his friend, Mr. Rogers, " could not live in a 
worse age, nor die in a better time." He was removed 
in mercy from the evil to come. If he had lived, he 
would only have beheld the rapid gathering of that 
tempest which he had so earnestly prayed might pass 
away 5 the decay of that religion of which he was a 
meek-hearted disciple $ and the sufferings and persecu- 
tions of a Master whom he enthusiastically loved. The 
assertion of Pope that Quarles received a pension from 
Charles the First, requires confirmation * ; but the 
monarch had a heart to feel, and a disposition to 
cherish the qualities he observed in the author of the 
Emblems. Who can regret, then, that the poet fell 
asleep, before the night came upon him ! 

He was mourned by many friends, and his talents 
and virtues formed the theme of pens, " neither mean 
nor few." The verses to his memory, by James Duport, 
the accomplished Greek professor at Cambridge, ought 

* The hero William, and the martyr Charles, 

One knighted Blackmore, and one pensioned Quarles. 

Imit. Hor. } epist. i., v. 386. 



FRANCIS QTJARLES. 221 

to be particularly mentioned. They have all the graceful 
ease of his happiest manner : — 

Quis serta coelo jam dabit ? aut pium 
Emblema texet noribus ingeni ? 

Quis symbolorum voce picta 

Una oculos animumque pascet ? 
&c. &c. 

In delineating his private life, we are happy to borrow 
again the pencil of his wife. " He was the husband of 
one wife, by whom he was the father of eighteen 
children, and how faithful and loving a husband and 
father he was, the joint tears of his widow and fatherless 
children will better express than my pen is able to do. 
In all his duties to God and man he was conscionable 
and orderly. He preferred God and religion to the first 
place in his thoughts, his King and country to the 
second, his family and studies he reserved to the last. 
As for God, he was frequent in his devotions and prayers 
to him, and almost constant in reading or meditating 
on his holy word. * * * And for his family, 
his care was very great over that, even when his occa- 
sions caused his absence from it. And when he was at 
home, his exhortations to us, to continue in virtue and 
godly life, were so pious and frequent ; his admonitions 
so grave and piercing; his reprehensions so mild and 
gentle ; and (above all) his own example in every re- 
ligious and moral duty, so constant and manifest, that 
his equal may be desired, but can hardly be met withal." 

From the same affectionate memorialist we learn that 
he was addicted to no " notorious vice whatsoever;" that 
was courteous and affable to all, and moderate and 
discreet in all his actions. His dislike to the tavern 

* Preface to the Shepherds' Oracles. 



222 FRANCIS QUARLES. 

festivities of the day, probably tended to produce the 
antipathy which Mr. Gifford says subsisted between him 
and Ben Jonson. He was an unwearied student, being 
rarely absent from his study after three o'clock in the 
morning. The charm of his conversation was re- 
membered by the bookseller Harriot, who said that it 
distilled pleasure, knowledge, and virtue, to all his 
acquaintance. 

In his religious creed he was a zealous son of the 
established church ; and it was his dying request to his 
friends, that they would make it universally known, that 
" as he was trained up and lived in tne true protestant 
Religion, so in that religion he died." In the latter part 
of his life he underwent many persecutions, and he 
seems to allude to his own sufferings in the Persecuted 
Man. "No sooner had I made a covenant with my 
God, but the world made a covenant against me, 
scandal] ed my name, slandered my actions, derided my 
simplicity, and despised my integrity. For my profes- 
sion's sake I have been reproached, and the reproaches 
of the world have fallen upon me 5 if I chastened my 
soul with fasting, it styled me with the name of hypocrite ; 
if I reproved the vanity of the times, it derided me with 
the name of puritan." His Prayers and Meditations 
form a lasting monument of his fervid piety. The fol- 
lowing beautiful supplications cannot fail of being accept- 
able to all who can sympathize with the expression of 
unfeigned devotion : — 

" Lord, if thy mercy exceeded not my misery, I could 
look for no compassion ; and if thy grace transcended 
not my sin, I could expect for nothing but confusion. 
Oh, thou that madest me of nothing, renew me, that 
have made myself far less than nothing $ revive those 



FRANCIS QUARLES. 223 

sparkles in my soul which lust hath quenched 3 cleanse 
thine image in me which my sin hath blurred 3 enlighten 
my understanding with thy truth ; rectify my judgment 
with thy word 3 direct my will with thy spirit 3 strengthen 
my memory to retain good things 3 order my affections, 
that I may love thee above all things 3 increase my faith 3 
encourage my hope; quicken my charity 3 sweeten my 
thoughts with thy grace 3 season my words with thy 
spirit 3 sanctify my actions with thy wisdom 3 subdue 
the insolence of my rebellious flesh 3 restrain the fury of 
my unbridled passions 3 reform the frailty of my cor- 
rupted nature 3 incline my heart to desire what is good, 
and bless my endeavours that I may do what I desire. 
Give me a true knowledge of myself, and make me 
sensible of mine own infirmities 3 let not the sense of 
those mercies which I enjoy, blot out of my remem- 
brance those miseries which I deserve, that I may be 
truly thankful for the one, and humbly penitent for the 
other. In all my afflictions keep me from despair 3 in 
all my deliverances preserve me from ingratitude 3 that 
being truly quickened with the sense of thy goodness, 
and truly humbled by the sight of mine own weakness, 
I may be here exalted by the virtue of thy grace, and 
hereafter advanced to the kingdom of thy glory." 

" O God, without the sunshine of whose gracious eye, 
the creature sits in darkness and in the shadow of death 3 
whose presence is the very life and true delight of those 
that love thee 3 cast down thine eyes of pity upon a lost 
sheep of Israel, which has wandered from thy fold into 
the desert of his own lusts. What dangers can I choose 
but meet, that have run myself out of thy protection ? 
What sanctuary can secure me, that have left the covert 
of thy wings? What comfort can I expect, O God, that 



224 FRANCIS QUARLES. 

have forsaken thee, the God of comfort and consolation ? 
Return thee, O great Shepherd of my soul, and with thy 
crook reduce * me to thy fold ; thou art my way, con- 
duct me , thou art my light, direct me ; thou art my 
life, quicken me. Disperse these clouds that stand 
betwixt thy angry face and my benighted soul j remove 
that cursed bar which my rebellion hath set betwixt thy 
deafened ear and my confused prayers, and let thy 
comfortable beams reflect upon me. Leave me not, O 
God, unto myself; O Lord, forsake me not too long, 
for in me dwells nothing but despair, and the terrors of 
Hell have taken hold of me. Remove this heart of 
stone, and give me, O good God, a heart of flesh, that 
it may be capable of thy mercies, and sensible of thy 
judgments ; plant in my heart a fear of thy name, and 
deliver my soul from carnal security ; order my affec- 
tions according to thy will, that I may love what thou 
lovest, and hate what thou hatest; kindle my zeal with 
a coal from thine altar, and increase my faith by the 
assurance of thy love. O holy fire, that always burnest 
and never goest out, kindle me. O sacred light, that 
always shinest and art never dark, illuminate me. O 
sweet Jesus, let my soul always desire thee, and seek 
thee, and find thee, and sweetly rest in thee -, be thou in 
all my thoughts, in all my words, in all my actions, that 
both my thoughts, my words, and my actions, being 
sanctified by thee here, I may be glorified by thee, 
hereafter." 

The portrait of Quarles is copied from an engraving 
by Marshall \, and does not realize the flattering account 
left by the poet's friends, of his personal appearance. 

* Lead back. 

t Bromley's Catalogue of Engraved British Portraits, p. 102. 



FRANCIS aUARLES. 225 

Harriot says, that "his person and mind were both 
lovely 5" but there is nothing in the warlike countenance 
before us to identify it with the author of the Emblems 
or the Meditations. Marshall also "wrought" his head, 
we learn from Aubrey, curiously in plaster, "and 
valued it for his sake. Tis pity it should be lost," adds 
the antiquary 3 "Mr. Quarles was a very good man." 

In addition to the poems previously mentioned, he wrote 
Sions Sonnets, an Elegy on his friend, Dr. Wilson*, &c. &c. 
And after his death were published Solomons Recantation, 
a paraphrase on Ecclesiastes, the Virgin Widow, a comedy, 
and the Shepherd's Oracles, which bear internal proof of 
having been composed about the year 1632. The Virgin 
Widow was acted at Chelsea by a " company of young 
gentlemen," but has little humour to recommend it. 
Langbaine calls it an innocent production. In Fuller's 
Abel Redivivus are several poems, the "most part of 
which," we are told by the quaint Editor, " were done 
by Master Quarles, father and son, sufficiently known 
for their abilities therein." The biographer of The 
Worthies entertained a very friendly feeling towards the 
poet, with whom he was probably acquainted, and he 
affirmed, that if Quarles had been contemporary with 
Plato, he would not only have allowed him to live, but 
advanced him to an office, in his Commonwealth. 

Fuller's book is not of common recurrence, but the 
following lines on the gentle Melancthon and the 
martyr Ridley, deserve preservation : — 

On Melancthon. 
Would thy ingenious fancy soar and fly 
Beyond the pitch of modern poesy ? 

* There was something awful in the event which suggested this Elegy. 
Quarles sat by the side of Dr. Wilson only two hours before his death, at 
the table of Sir Julius Caesar, Master of the llolls. 

a 



226 FRANCIS QUARLES. 

Or wouldst thou learn to charm the conquer d ear 

With rhetoric's oily magic ? Would'st thou hear. 

The majesty of language ? Wouldst thou pry 

Into the bowels of philosophy, 

Moral, or natural ? Or would' st thou sound 

The holy depth, and touch the unfathomed ground 

Of deep theology ? 

Go, search Melancthon's tomes. 

On Ridley. 

Read in the progress of this blessed story 
Rome's cursed cruelty and Ridley's glory : 
Rome's sirens 7 song ; but Ridley's careless ear 
Was deaf: they charm'd, but Ridley would not hear. 
Rome sung preferment, but brave Ridley's tongue 
Condemn'd that false preferment which Rome sung.i 
Rome whisper d wealth ; but Ridley (whose great gain 
Was godliness) he wav'd it with disdain, 
Rome threatened durance ; but great Ridley's mind 
Was too, too strong for threats or chains to bind. 
Rome thunder'd death ; but Ridley's dauntless eye 
Star'd in Death's face, and scorn'd Death standing by : 
In spite of Rome, for England's faith he stood, 
And in the flames he seal'd it with his blood. 

In these few verses the poet has presented a rapid 
and effective picture of Ridley's life 5 his frequent tempta- 
tions, his sublime courage, and his holy resignation, are 
all recollected. No man " star'd in Death's face" (an 
image of wonderful power) with a more dauntless eye, 
than he who suffered and died with Latimer. 

It would seem, from an Epigram addressed to F. 
Quarks, by Thomas Bancroft**, that he was at one 
time engaged on a poem descriptive of the life of 
our Saviour. If completed, it was never published. 

* Two Bookes of Epigrammes and Epitaphs, &c, 1639, 



FRANCIS QUARLES. 227 

Upon the poetical character of Quarles, it will be 
needless to dwell. We may say of him, in the emphatic 
words of Dr. Hammond, that he was of an athletic 
habit of mind, braced into more than common vigour 
by healthful and ennobling studies, and a pure and 
virtuous life. There was nothing effeminate in his 
manners or disposition ; he was often ungraceful, but 
never weak. No man had a correcter notion of the 
beauty of style, or presented a more striking exception 
to his own rule : — " Clothe not thy language," he said, 
" either with obscurity or affectation 5 in the one thou 
discoverest too much darkness, in the other, too much 
lightness. He that speaks from the understanding to 
the understanding is the best interpreter." It would 
have been good for his fame if he had practised what 
he taught. His eccentricity was the ruin of his genius : 
he offered up the most beautiful offspring of his imagi- 
nation, without remorse, to this misshapen idol. 

The specimens given in the foregoing pages will, 
perhaps, diminish the prejudice so long entertained 
against their author. They show that he could write 
with dignity, simplicity, and pathos, and that if his 
poetry flowed in a muddy stream, particles of precious 
gold may be gathered from its channel. 

His pencil rather "dashed" than "drew," and he 
wanted the taste and patience to finish his pictures. 
He was sublime and vulgar at the impulse of the 
moment. Sometimes, however, images of great delicacy 
fell unconsciously from his pen. Evangelus' descrip- 
tion of the appearance of the Angel in the Shepherd's 
Oracles, may be quoted as an example: — ■ 

His skin did show, 
More white than ivory, or the new fall'n snow, 

a 2 



228 FRANCIS QUARLES. 

Whose perfect whiteness made a circling light, 
That where it stood, it silvered o'er the night. 

As a writer of prose, he deserves very high applause. 
His style is remarkably flowing, and animated by a 
Christian benignity of spirit. Without the copious rich- 
ness of Taylor, or the mystical eloquence of Brown, or 
the poignant terseness of South, he possesses sufficient 
force and sweetness to entitle him to a seat in the midst 
of these great masters of our language. Quarles was 
not only a fruitful author ; he was also a learned and 
laborious student, and while Secretary to Archbishop 
Usher, contributed materially to promote the progress 
of his theological researches. This interesting fact has, 
I believe, never been noticed -, but Usher alludes to his 
services in a letter to G. Vossius, and speaks of him as 
a poet held in considerable esteem, among his own 
countrymen, for his sacred compositions *. 

Of the widow of Quarles, no records exist. With 
what patience she endured the loss of one whom she so 
tenderly loved, or how long she survived him, we know 
not 3 but we may be assured that the blow was tempered 
to her strength, and that her husband's dying words, 
that God would be a husband to the widow, received a full 
and merciful fulfilment. 

Of the poet's numerous family, John is alone remem- 
bered. He was born in Essex, and afterwards became, 
Wood says, a member of Exeter College, Oxford, where 
he bore arms for the King in the garrison of the town ; 

* The letter is printed in the appendix to Parr's life of the Archbishop, 
p. 484. The passage referring to Quarles is as follows: — " Ut autem 
intelligas quibus in Locis Cottonianum Libri primi et tertii Chronicon 
a vulgato difTerat ; Florentinum W igorniensem nunc ad te mitto, quern 
Francisci Quarlesii Opera, qui mihi turn erut ab Epistolis (vir ob sacra- 
tiorem poesin apud Anglos suos non incelebris) cum illo conferendum 
curavi ad annum DCCCC. Dionysianum a quo quatenus prius missus 
initium duxit." 



FRANCIS aUARLES. 229 

but it is not clear that he ever belonged to the Univer- 
sity. We find, from his own relation, that he was 
indebted for his education to Archbishop Usher, in 
whose house he appears to have resided. 

That little education I dare own 
I had, I'm proud to say, from him alone. 
His grave advice would oftentimes distill 
Into my ears, and captivate my will. 
The example of his life did every day 
Afford me lectures *. 

Upon the decease of this prelate, to whom he was 
sincerely attached, he composed an elegy beginning w 7 ith 
those beautiful lines : — 

Then weep no more ; see how his peaceful breast, 
Rock'd by the hand of death, takes quiet rest. 
Disturb him not ; but let him sweetly take 
A full repose ; he hath been long awake. 

The feet of Sion's watchman must have been weary, 
and his eyes heavy with sleep ! While the royal cause 
offered any hopes of a prosperous issue, John Quarles 
continued an active and faithful servant of the king, in 
whose army he obtained the rank of captain 3 but when 
the strength of the loyalists was exhausted by the 
repeated victories of the Parliament, he " retired to 
London in a mean condition," and about 1649 bade 
farewell to England, and went abroad, but in what 
capacity Wood w r as ignorant. Upon his return he 
supported himself by his pen, until he was swept aw r ay 
in the plague of 1665. The place of his burial is 
unknown. His compositions were very numerous, and 
by some he was " esteemed a good poet," though 
deficient in the pow T er and originality of his father. 

* An Elegie on the most Reverend and learned James Usher, L. 
Archbishop of Armagh, 1656. 



230 



GEORGE HERBERT. 



The literature of our country is rich in the biography 
of illustrious men. The names of Spenser, of Shak- 
speare, and of Milton, have been enshrined in strains of 
eloquence and beauty, almost as lasting as their own. 
But it abounds also in histories more simple, and yet 
not less delightful ; sheaves of gentle and religious 
thoughts bound together by the hands of humble- 
minded Christians: such are the celebrated lives of 
Izaak Walton. The accomplishments of Wotton, the 
learning of Donne, the piety of Herbert, and the suffer- 
ings of Sanderson, are faithfully and tenderly recorded 
in his page — 

— With moistened eye 

We read of faith and purest charity, 

In statesman, priest, and humble citizen. 

Oh ! could we copy their mild virtues, then 

What joy to live, what happiness to die ! 

Methinks their very names, shine still and bright, 

Satellites turning in a lucid ring, 

Around meek Walton's heavenly memory. 

Wordsworth. 

The life of Herbert possesses the greatest charm, and 
has long been blended in the heart with scenes of 
serenity and peace ; with the path of the quiet fields 
to church, and the sweet solemnity of the village 
pastor's fire-side. "Tis an honour to the place," says 
Aubrey, " to have had the heavenly and ingenious con- 
templation of this good man." 

The writer of the following memoir has found it 
impossible to read of Herbert, and not to love him. 




©3E(D>H(S3E IHIEIRBEMTTo 






GEORGE HERBERT. 231 

George Herbert was born on the 3rd of April, 1593, 
in the Castle of Montgomery, in Wales, which had for 
many years been the abode of his family. Wood calls 
it "a pleasant and romancy place 5" Aubrey dwells with 
pleasure on the "exquisite prospect four different 
ways 5" and Donne, in one of his poems, celebrates 
the "Primrose Hill" to the south of the Castle. 
Nothing, however, now remains, except the fragment 
of a tower and a few mouldering walls, to remind 
the beholder of its former greatness. 

Mr. Richard Herbert, the father of the poet, was 
descended from a line of illustrious ancestors 5 and we 
are indebted to Lord Herbert of Cherbury, for a 
graphic sketch of his personal appearance. " And first 
of my father, whom I remember to have been black 
haired and bearded, as all my ancestors on his side 
are said to have been, of a manly, but somewhat stern 
look, but withal very handsome and compact in his 
limbs, and of great courage*." 

The poet's mother was Magdalen Newport, daughter 
of Sir Richard Newport, and Margaret, youngest 
daughter and heiress of Sir Thomas Bfomley, one of 
the Privy Council and Executor to Henry the Eighth. 
She was a lady of remarkable piety and good sense. 
Her family consisted of seven sons 5 Edward, Richard, 
William, Charles, George, Henry, and Thomas 5 and 
three daughters, Elizabeth, Margaret, and Frances. 

Of Edward, who subsequently became the well-known 
Baron of Cherbury, a short account will not be unac- 

* There was a tradition in the family of the Herberts of Cherbury, 
(Fuller's Worthies, vol. i. p. 18, ed. Nichols) that Sir Richard Herbert, 
tempore Edward the Fourth, slew, in the battle of Banbury, one hundred 
and forty men with his own hand. He was of gigantic stature, and the 
peg on which he used to hang his hat, was to be seen in Montgomery 
Castle in the time of Fuller. 



232 GEORGE HERBERT. 

ceptable. He verified the saying, that the child is 
father of the man. A boy who had the assurance to 
signalize the first day of his residence at Oxford, by a 
challenge to a logical disputation, might reasonably be 
expected to expand into a character of mingled foppery 
and intellect. His Autobiography, edited by Lord Orford, 
is a most amusing specimen of lively gossip and con- 
ceited philosophy. He begins one passage by informing 
us, that during his sojourn in Paris he was received in 
the house ce of that incomparable scholar, Isaac Casau- 
bon, by whose learned conversation he was much 
benefited;" and concludes with an enumeration of his 
other amusements, the most important of which were, 
riding on the " great horse," and singing "according to 
the rules of the French masters." But he is chiefly 
remembered as one of the earliest reducers of Deism 
into a system, by asserting the sufficiency and uni- 
versality of natural religion, and discarding, as un- 
necessary, all extraordinary revelation. Yet Grotius 
recommended the publication of the De Veritate, and 
Mr. Fludd told Aubrey, that Lord Herbert had prayers 
in his house twice a day, and " on Sundays would have 
his Chaplain read one of Smyth's sermons*." 

Mr. Herbert died in 1597, when George was in his 
fourth year, and the care of his education, consequently, 
devolved upon his mother, who appears to have been 
peculiarly fitted for the discharge of this arduous task. 
She realized the character so beautifully drawn by 

* The De Veritate was published at Paris in 1624, and among the 
earliest opponents of the author were P. Gassendi, Opuscuta Philoso- 
phical p. 411, 419, Lug. 1658; and Baxter, in More Reasons for the 
Christian Religioyi, and no Reason against it, Locke also alluded to 
the Treatise in his Essay on the Human Understanding (folio ed. 1694), 
but in terms too cursory to claim the merit of a refutation. He styles 
Lord Herbert " a man of great parts." 



GEORGE HERBERT. 233 

Quarks in the Enchiridion ; acting with such tenderness 
towards her children, that they feared her displeasure 
more than her correction. Our poet remained under 
the protection of this worthy woman, and in the quiet of 
his home, until he reached his twelfth year. During 
this period he participated, with two of his brothers, in 
the instruction of a private tutor. He was now removed 
to Westminster school, and through the kindness of 
Dr. Neale, the Dean of Westminster, particularly re- 
commended to the notice of Mr. Ireland, the Head- 
Master. Here the powers of his mind, and the virtues 
of his heart, were rapidly developed 3 his progress in 
classical learning obtained for him the respect and 
esteem of the tutors, and the amenity of his manners 
won the affection of his companions. 

About fifteen, being then a King's scholar, he was 
elected to Trinity College, Cambridge -, and from an 
anecdote related in Plume's Life of Bishop Hacket, the 
school-fellow of Herbert, we discover that, even at this 
time, his acquirements were deemed full of promise. Mr. 
Ireland assured them, on their leaving Westminster, 
" that he expected to have credit from them two at the 
University, or would never hope for it afterwards while 
he lived." It is recorded of Archbishop Laud, that in 
his boyhood he gave so many indications of rare genius, 
that his master, as if with a prophetic certainty of the 
future eminence of his pupil, used frequently to say, 
" He hoped he would remember Reading School when 
he became a great man." It is gratifying to know that 
both of these anticipations were nobly fulfilled. 

So material a change in Herbert's mode of life excited 
the ever- wakeful anxiety of his parent, and she prevailed 
on the excellent Dr. Nevil, then Dean of Canterbury, 



234 GEORGE HERBERT, 

and Master of the College, to take her son under his 
protection, and provide a tutor to superintend his 
studies. Ellis, in his brief notice of Herbert, has re- 
marked that nature intended him for a knight-errant, 
but that disappointed ambition made him a saint 5 but 
if the editor of the Early Specimens had even glanced over 
the poet's history, he would soon have seen the injustice of 
his opinion. An extract from a letter, written to his 
mother in his first year at Cambridge, will throw an 
interesting light on the state of his youthful feelings. 

" But I fear the heat of my late ague hath dried up 
those springs by which scholars say the Muses use to 
take up their habitations. However, I need not their 
help to reprove the vanity of those many love-poems 
that are daily writ and consecrated to Venus ; nor to 
bewail that so few are writ that look towards God and 
heaven. For my own part, my meaning (dear mother) 
is, in these sonnets, to declare my resolution to be, that 
my poor abilities in poetry shall be all and ever conse- 
crated to God's glory." 

I confess my inability to discover any traces of knight- 
errantry in these sentiments. Jeremy Taylor says, that 
some are of age at fifteen, some at twenty, and some 
never. The life of Herbert, even from his boyhood, had 
been a ministration of purity and peace. Religion in a 
child is generally considered wonderful, as if the visita- 
tions of that daughter of heaven were only made to us 
when oppressed with years, and in the winter of our 
days. But this belief is one of the many errors in 
which we are so fond of indulging. A cruse of pure 
and beautiful thoughts is intrusted unto each of us at 
our birth, and if we treasure it as we ought, and employ 
its divine potency only in the nourishment of the good 



GEORGE HERBERT. 235 

and the holy, it will not waste or diminish in the hour 
of adversity. The amiable Dr. Hammond, when at 
Eton, frequently stole away from his companions to the 
most sequestered places, for the purpose of prayer ; and 
Dr. More, the author of the Song of the Soul, was 
wont to declare that in his childhood he was con- 
tinually sensible of the presence of the Deity. 

The society of his mother, and the innocent amuse- 
ments that beguiled his infancy, had exercised a bene- 
ficial influence on the young poet's disposition. He 
had much cause of thankfulness, also, in the fatherly 
solicitude of Dr. Nevil, who invited him to his own 
house, and assisted him with counsel and advice. 
Perfection, however, is not given to any man, and it is 
not surprising that the condescending intimacy of the 
Master, gave birth to sensations of pride in the breast 
of the high-born Undergraduate. To this cause we 
may attribute the seclusion in which he lived, and his 
dislike to the formation of indiscriminate friendships. 
His few companions were selected for their worth and 
talents, and among them may be mentioned Nicholas 
Ferrar, who afterwards rendered himself so notorious 
by the eccentric enthusiasm of his religious conduct : 
he was then a member of Clare Hall, of which he had 
been entered in 1606. 

One of the prevalent follies of the young students of 
the University, at this period, was a love of expensive 
clothes ; and Herbert did not escape the infection. 
When courtiers placed flowers behind their ears, and 
one of the most elegant noblemen of the age, William 
Earl of Pembroke, wore ear-rings, the extravagancies of 
fashion must have been widely disseminated*. To 

* See Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, passim. 



236 GEORGE HERBERT. 

what a height they had attained at Cambridge may be 
learnt from an " Item " in the amusing regulations issued 
by "the Yice- Chancellor and Caput/' before the King's 
visit in 1614-15. 

" Item. — Considering the fearful enormitie and excesse of 
apparell seene in all degrees, as namely, strange pekadivelas, 
vast bands, huge cuffs, shoe-roses, tufts, locks, and topps of 
hare (hair) unbeseeminge that modesty and carridge of 
Students in soe renowned an Universitye, it is straightlye 
charged, ' that noe Graduate or Student in the Universitye 
presume to weare any other apparell or ornaments, especially 
at the tyme of his Majesties abode in the towne than such 
onely as the statutes and laudable customs of this Universitye 
do allowe, uppon payne of forfeiture of 6s. 8<i, for every default ; 
and if any presume, after this publique warninge, to offend in 
the premises, such his willfull offence shal be deemed a con- 
tempte, and the party so offending shal be punished, over and 
besides the foresaid Mulct, a months imprisonment accord- 
inglie." — Nichols's Progresses of King James the First, vol. 
iii. p. 43-5. 

The month's imprisonment was more effectual in 
deterring offenders than the mulct of 6s. 8c?., although 
that was not a sum to be despised. 

The King and Prince Charles entered Cambridge on 
the 7th of March, with " as much solemnity and con- 
course of gallants/' as the severity of the weather per- 
mitted. The Earl of Suffolk had been recently appointed 
Chancellor of the University, in the place of his rela- 
tion, Lord Northampton, and his arrangements for the 
reception of the Royal visiters were marked by the most 
magnificent liberality. He was established at St. John's, 
where his expenses are said to have amounted to a 
thousand pounds daily. Lady Suffolk entertained her 
party, consisting principally of the Howards, at Mag- 



GEORGE HERBERT. 237 

dalen College. Herbert was now a Minor Fellow of 
Trinity, having taken his Bachelor's degree in 1612 ; 
but I do not find that he took any active part in the 
preparation of the various amusements with which the 
University endeavoured to enliven the visit of the 
monarch. In 1616 he was made Master of Arts ; and 
it appears, from a letter he addressed to Sir John 
Danvers, in the March of the following year, that his 
income was not equal to his wants. 

Sir John Danvers was the second husband of Mrs. 
Herbert, who married him about the February of 
1608-9. The match is mentioned by that lively gossip, 
Chamberlain, in a letter dated March 3, 1608-9. 
" Young Davers (Danvers) is likewise w T edded to the 
widow Herbert, mother to Sir Edward, of more than 
twice his age*." Sir John Danvers was High Sheriff of 
Northamptonshire in 1626, M.P. for the University of 
Oxford from 1625 to 1640, and Gentleman of the Privy 
Chamber to Charles the First. He subsequently became 
an active partizan of Cromwell, and was named one of 
the Council of State. His public life seems to have 
justified the character given of him by Clarendon, who 
says that he was a " proud, weak, formal man 5" but 
to Herbert he always behaved with kindness and 
generosity f. 

To Sir John Danvers. 
Sir, — I dare no longer be silent, least while I think I am 
modest, I wrong both myself and also the confidence my friends 
have in me ; wherefore I will open my case unto you, which, I 
think, deserves the reading at the least; and it is, I want 
books extremely. You know, Sir, how I am now setting foot in 

* Birch's MSS., Brit. Mus. 4173. 

t Vide Noble's Lives of the Regicides, vol. i. p. 163—176; and 
Nichols's Progresses of James the First, vol. iii. p. 979. 



238 GEORGE HERBERT. 

divinity, to lay the platform of my future life, and shall I then be 
fain always to borrow books, and build on another's foundation ? 
What tradesman is there who will set up without his tools ? 
Pardon my boldness, Sir, it is a most serious case, nor can I 
write coldly in that wherein consisteth the making good 
of my former education, of obeying that Spirit which hath 
guided me hitherto, and of achieving my (I dare say) holy 
ends. This also is aggravated in that, I apprehend, what my 
friends would have been forward to say, if I had taken ill 
courses, " Follow your book, and you shall want nothing/' 
You know, Sir, it is their ordinary speech, and now let them 
make it good ; for since, I hope, I have not deceived their 
expectation, let not them deceive mine. But, perhaps, they 
will say, " You are sickly, you must not study too hard." It 
is true (God knows) I am weak, yet not so but that every day 
I may step one step towards my journey's end ; and I love my 
friends so well, that if all things proved not well, I had 
rather the fault should lie on me, than on them. But they 
will object again — " What becomes of your annuity?" Sir, if 
there be any truth in me, I find it little enough to keep me in 
health. You know I was sick last vacation, neither am I yet 
recovered, so that I am fain, ever and anon, to buy somewhat 
tending towards my health, for infirmities are both painful and 
costly. Now, this Lent, I am forbid utterly to eat any fish, so 
'that I am fain to diet in my chambers at my own cost ; for in 
our public halls, you know, is nothing but fish and white-meats. 
Out of Lent also, twice a week, on Fridays and Saturdays, I 
must do so, which yet sometimes I fast. Sometimes also I ride 
to Newmarket, and there lie a day or two for to refresh me ; 
all which tend to avoiding costlier matters if I should fall 
absolutely sick. I protest and vow I even study thrift, and 
yet I am scarce able, with much ado, to make one half year s 
allowance shake hands with the other ; and yet, if a book of 
four or five shillings come in my way, I buy it, tho' I fast for it ; 
yea, sometimes of ten shillings. But alas, Sir, what is that to 
those infinite volumes of divinity which yet every day swell and 
grow bigger. Noble Sir, pardon my boldness, and consider but 
these three things. First, the bulk of divinity ; secondly, the 



GEORGE HERBERT. 239 

time when I desire this (which is now when I must lay the 
foundation of ray whole life) : thirdly, what I desire, and to 
what end, not vain pleasures, nor to a vain end. If, then, 
Sir, there be any course, either by engaging my future 
annuity, or any other way, I desire you, Sir, to be my 
mediator with them on my behalf. Now I write to you, Sir, 
because to you I have ever opened my heart, and have reason 
by the patent of your perpetual favour, to do so still, for I 
am sure you love 

Your faithful servant, 
March 18, 1617, Trin. Coll. George Herbert. 

Of the precise amount of Herbert's income, we are 
ignorant. He had been elected a Major Fellow of his 
College in 1615, and it is singular that he does not 
allude to this circumstance. His father having died 
intestate, or leaving a will so imperfect that it was never 
proved, the larger portion of the estate descended to the 
eldest son, Edward, who tells us that his mother, 
though in possession of all his "father's leases and 
goods," committed the provision of the family to him, 
and he accordingly settled an annuity of thirty pounds 
on each of his brothers, and a dowry of a thousand 
pounds on each of his three sisters. 

Thirty pounds a year, added to a Fellowship, and 
managed with prudence, were sufficient to answer all 
the demands of a College- life more than two centuries 
ago, though inadequate to the indulgence of the " gentle 
humour for fine clothes and court-like company," and 
the love of buying books, which characterized the still 
youthful scholar. The news of the arrival of a parcel 
of books from the Continent, induced him to renew 
his application. 

TO THE TRULY NOBLE SlR JOHN DANVERS. 

Sir, — I understand from my brother Henry, that he hath 
bought a parcel of books for me, and that they are coming 



240 GEORGE HERBERT. 

over. Now though they have hitherto travelled upon your 
charge, yet if my sister were acquainted that they are ready, 
I dare say she would make good her promise of taking five or 
six pound upon her, which she hath hitherto deferred to do, 
not of herself, but upon the want of those books which were 
not to be got in England. For that which surmounts, though 
your noble disposition is infinitely free, yet I had rather fly to 
my old ward, that if any course could be taken of doubling my 
annuity now, upon condition that I should surcease from all 
title to it after I entered into a benefice, I should be most glad 
to entertain it, and both pay for the surplusage of these books, 
and for ever after cease my clamorous and greedy bookish 
requests. It is high time now that I should be no more a 
burden to you, since I can never answer what I have already 
received; for your favours are so ancient that they prevent my 
memory, and yet still grow upon 

Your humble servant, 

George Herbert. 
I remember my most humble duty to my mother ; I have 
wrote to my dear sick sister this week already, and therefore 
now I hope may be excused. I pray, Sir, pardon my boldness 
of enclosing my brother s letter in yours, for it was because I 
know your lodging, but not his= — (No date.) 

This dear sick sister was Elizabeth, the wife of Sir 
Henry Jones. The latter part of her life, we are told 
by her brother, Lord Herbert, was most sickly and 
miserable. She pined "away to skin and bones" for 
nearly fourteen years, and at last died in London, worn 
out by pain and affliction. 

Herbert's requests were not made to Sir John Danvers 
in vain ; we gather from the following letter, that he 
had given him a horse, a present gratefully valued by 
the poet: — 

Sir, — Though I had the best wit in the world, yet it would 
easily tire me to find out variety of thanks for the diversity of 
your favours, if I sought to do so : but I profess it not : and, 
therefore, let it be sufficient for me that the heart which you 



GEORGE HERBERT. 241 

have won long since, is still true to you, and hath nothing else 
to answer your infinite kindnesses but a constancy of obe- 
dience; only hereafter, I will take heed how I propose my 
desires unto you, since I find you so willing to yield to my 
requests ; for since your favours come on horseback, there is 
reason that my desires should go on foot. Neither do I make 
any question, but that you have performed your kindness to 
the full, and that the horse is every way fit for me, and I will 
strive to imitate the completeness of your love, &c. 

A bright prospect soon began to open before the poet. 
Upon the resignation of Sir Francis Nethersole, the 
Public Oratorship of the University became vacant, and 
Herbert exerted himself with great ardour to obtain the 
appointment. How delightedly he contemplated the 
office may be read in his own animated words : — " The 
Oratorship/' he says, "that you may understand what it 
is, is the finest place in the University, though not the 
gainfullest, yet that will be about 30/. per annum. But 
the commodiousness is beyond the revenue, for the 
Orator writes all the University letters, be it to the 
King, Prince, or whatever (whoever?) comes to the 
University. To requite these pains, he takes place next 
the Doctors, is at all their assemblies and meetings, and 
sits above the Proctors." These were " gaynesses " 
which he acknowledged would "please a young man 
well." But notwithstanding his anxiety about the 
Oratorship, his heart was with his suffering sister. He 
writes from Cambridge, January 1 9, 1 6 1 9 : " The things 
you sent me came safe, and now the only thing I long 
for is to hear of my dear sick sister." 

Sir Francis Nethersole was going abroad on the King's 
business, and Herbert, who had long known him at 
Cambridge, was desirous of procuring his interest. Sir 

R 



242 GEORGE HERBERT. 

John Danvers undertook to employ his influence in 
effecting this object. 

To Sir John Danvers. 
Sir, — This week hath loaded me with your favours. I wish 
I could have come in person to thank you, but it is not pos- 
sible ; presently after Michaelmas, I am to make an oration to 
the whole University, of an hour long, in Latin, and my Lincoln 
journey hath set me much behind hand. Neither can I so 
much as go to Bugden and deliver your letter, yet I have sent 
it thither by a faithful messenger, this day. I beseech you 
all, you and my dear mother and sister, to pardon me, for my 
Cambridge necessities are stronger to tie me here, than yours 
to London. If I could possibly have come, none should have 
done my message to Sir Francis Nethersole for me ; he and I 
are ancient acquaintance, and I have a strong opinion of him, 
that if he can do me a courtesy, he will of himself ; yet your 
appearing in it affects me strangely. I have sent you here 
enclosed a letter from our Master, in my behalf, which if you 
can send to Sir Francis before his departure, it will do well, 
for it expresseth the Universities inclination to me ; yet, if 
you cannot send it with much convenience, it is no matter, for 
the gentleman needs no incitation to love me. 

The Master of Trinity College was Dr. John Richard- 
son, one of the translators of the Bible, who succeeded 
Dr. Nevil. That excellent man died at Canterbury, in 
1615. 

In another letter to Sir John Danvers, on the 6th of 
October, he alludes to the fears Sir Francis Nethersole 
had expressed, lest the " civil nature" of the Oratorship 
should divert him from the pursuit of divinity. 

Sir, — I understand from Sir Francis Nethersole's letter, 
that he fears I have not fully resolved of the matter, since this 
place being civil, may divert me too much from divinity, at 
which, not without cause, he thinks I aim. But, I have wrote 



GEORGE? HERBERT. 243 

him back, that this dignity hath no such earthiness in it, but it 
may very well be joined with heaven ; or if it had to others, yet 
to me it should not, for ought I yet knew ; and therefore, I desired 
him to send me a direct answer in his next letter. I pray, Sir, 
therefore, cause this enclosed to be carried to his brother's 
house, of his own name (as I think), at the sign of the Pedler 
and the Pack, on London Bridge, for these he assigns me. I 
cannot yet find leisure to write to my Lord, or Sir Benjamin 
Ruddyard ; but I hope I shall shortly. Though for the reckon- 
ing of your favours I shall never find time and paper enough, 
yet I am 

Your readiest servant, 
October 6, 1619, Trin. Coll. GEORGE HERBERT. 

I remember my most humble duty to my mother, who 
cannot think me lazy, since I rode two hundred miles to see a 
sister, in a way I knew not, in the midst of much business, 
and all in a fortnight, not long since. 

The Lord to whom Herbert refers was probably the 
Earl of Pembroke. Sir Benjamin Ruddyard was a 
member of St. John's College, Oxford, where, according 
to Wood, he laid " the seeds of an excellent poet." 
This praise is not merited 5 but some of his poems were 
reprinted by Sir Egerton Brydges in 1817*. He was 
the friend of Ben Jonson, and of the distinguished men of 
his day. He sat also in the Parliaments of Charles the 
First, and it was here that he gained for himself the 
respect of all true lovers of their country. The speeches 
delivered by him on the 1 7th of February, 1 642 5 and 
on the propriety of sending propositions of peace to his 
Majesty, ought to be perpetually had in remembrance. 
They breathe the manly and chivalrous dignity of an 
English gentleman, chastened by the pure and high- 
minded earnestness of a true Christian. " Wherefore, 
Master Speaker," he says, at the conclusion of the last- 

* Poems of the Earl of Pembroke and Sir Benjamin Ruddyard, 1817. 

R 2 



244 GEORGE HERBERT. 

mentioned speech, " let us, as wise men, as charitable 
Christians, as loving subjects, send propositions of 
peace to the King. I do verily believe that God will 
bless us more in a treaty than in more blood. His will 
be done." When the Independents obtained the " upper 
hand," he was ejected from the House of Commons, 
and retired to his estate at East Woodhay, where he 
resided till his death in 1658. 

On the 21st of October, 1619, according to Zouch, 
Herbert was chosen public orator j but Cole, in his 
MS. collections, fixes the election on the 2 1st of 
January, which must be the correct date, for Herbert 
writes to Sir John Danvers, January 19 ; — "Concerning 
the oratorship all goes well yet -, the next Friday it is 
tried *." 

He was now in his twenty- sixth year, and inferior to 
few members of the university in talents or acquire- 
ments. To a more than common proficiency in the 
academic studies, he united an intimate knowledge of 
the French, Italian, and Spanish languages. An oppor- 
tunity of distinguishing himself soon occurred. In 
1620, James presented copies of the new editions of his 
works to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and 
the letter in which Herbert, as orator, acknowledged the 

* Herbert was a contributor to the Lacrymce Cantabrigienses in Obitum 
SerenissinuB Regince, fyc, Cantab. 1619. 

Quo te felix Anna modo deflere licebit? 

Cui magnum imperium gloria major erat : 
Ecce mens torpens animus succumbit utrique, 

Cui tenuis fama, ingeniumque minus. 
Quis nisi cum manibus Briareus oculisque sit Argus, 

Scribere te dignum, vel lacrymare queat? 
Frustra igitur sudo ; superest mihi sola voluptas 

Quod calamum excusent Pontus et Astra meum : 
Namque Annae laudes ccelo scribuntur aperto ; 

Sed luctus nostri scribitur Oceano. 

G. Herbert, Coll. Trin. Socius, p. 81. 



GEORGE HERBERT. 245 

receipt of the Basilicon Doron, immediately procured the 
favour of the King, who expressed a desire to know the 
writer's name, and on hearing it, he asked the Earl of 
Pembroke if he knew him. The Earl replied, that he 
" knew him very well, and that he was his kinsman, but 
that he loved him more for his learning and virtue, than 
for that he was of his name and family." James is 
reported to have smiled, and to have asked permission 
that he might love him too, adding that " he took him 
to be the jewel of that university." 

The partiality of James to his hunting seat, at Roy- 
ston, frequently took him into the vicinity of Cambridge, 
and when he visited the University he was always 
welcomed by Herbert, who grew so much into favour, 
observes Walton, that he had " a particular appointment 
to attend his Majesty at Roystonj" and after discours- 
ing with him, the King told Lord Pembroke that he 
"found the Orator's wisdom and learning much above 
his age and wit." Herbert could not have anticipated, 
when only five years before he was "ranked" with all 
the students of Trinity, on " each side the entrance," as 
James passed into the college, that he should soon 
become the associate of his monarch. But prosperity, 
though a flowery path, is not exempt from peril. The 
condescension of his royal master, and the seductive 
charms of the court, dazzled for a season the eyes of 
the poet ; the old cloisters of Trinity lost their charm, 
and we are told, that he seldom looked towards Cam- 
bridge, except when the King was there, and " then he 
never failed." Walton, who wrote about Herbert with 
the tenderness of a brother, describes his feelings " as a 
laudable desire to be something more than he was.' 1 
The oratorship had been to both his predecessors the 



z,-±u GEORGE HERBERT. 

stepping-stone to political honours, for Sir Robert 
Naunton was made Secretary of State, and' Sir Francis 
Nethersole was treading in the same path. Herbert 
may, therefore, be pardoned for surrendering his mind 
to dreams which must ever hold out allurements to the 
young and enthusiastic. His flattery of James was 
only in accordance with the temper of the age. Bishop 
Andrews and Lord Bacon offered the same incense. 

His anticipations were now, indeed, so highly raised, 
that he would gladly have resigned the oratorship if he 
could have gained his mother's consent. In one of his 
poems, apparently written at this time, he refers to his 
situation with evident dissatisfaction : — 

Whereas my birth and spirit rather took 

The way that takes the town : 
Thou didst betray me to a lingring book, 

And wrap me in a gown. 
I was entangled in a world of strife, 
Before I had the power to change my life. 

Yet, for I threatened oft the siege to raise, 

Not simp'ring all my age ; 
Thou often didst with academic praise 

Melt and dissolve my rage. 
I took the sweetened pill, till I came where 
I could not go away, nor persevere. 



Now I am here, what thou wilt do with me, 

None of my books will show ; 
» I read and sigh, and wish I were a tree, 

For then sure I should grow 
To fruit or shade ; at least some bird would trust 
Her household with me, and I would be just. 

But amid all his " gaynesses," he never ceased to 



GEORGE HERBERT. 247 

recollect and lament the afflictions of his sister. How 
full of brotherly love is the following: — 

For my dear sick Sister. 
Most dear Sister, — Think not my silence forgetfulness, 
or that my love is as dumb as my papers ; though businesses 
may stop my hand, yet my heart, a much better member, is 
always with you, and, which is more, with our good and 
gracious God incessantly begging some ease of your pains, 
with that earnestness that becomes your griefs, and my love. 
God, who knows and sees this writing, knows also my solicit- 
ing him has been much, and my tears many for you : judge 
me, then, by those waters, and not by my ink, and then you 
shall justly value 

Your most truly, 

Most heartily, 
Affectionate brother and servant, 
December 6, 1620, Trim, Coll. GEORGE Herbert. 

And the consolations addressed to his mother, while 
labouring under a long and painful illness, testify the 
warmth and steadfastness of his piety. 

Madam, — At my last parting from you I was the better 
content, because I was in hope I should myself carry all sick- 
ness out of your family ; but since I know I did not, and that 
your share continues, or rather increaseth, I wish earnestly 
that I were again with you ; and I would quickly make good 
my wish, but that my employment doth fix me here, it being 
now but a month to our commencement ; wherein my absence, 
by how much it naturally augmenteth suspicion, by so muck 
shall it make my prayers the more constant and the more 
earnest for you to the God of all consolation. In the mean 
time I beseech you to be cheerful, and comfort yourself in the 
God of all comfort, who is not willing to behold any sorrow but 
for sin. What hath affliction grievous in it more than for a 
moment? Or why should our afflictions here have so much 
power or boldness as to oppose the hope of our joys hereafter ? 
Madam, as the earth is but a point in respect of the heavens, 



248 GEORGE HERBERT. 

so are earthly troubles compared to heavenly joys ; therefore, 
if either age or sickness lead you to those joys, consider what 
advantage you have over youth and health, who are now so 
near those true comforts. Your last letter gave me earthly 
preferment, and, I hope, kept heavenly for yourself. But 
would you divide and choose too? Our College customes 
allow not that ; and I should account myself most happy if 
I might change with you : for I have always observed the 
thread of life to be like other threads, or skeins of silk, full of 
snarles and incumbrances. Happy is he, whose bottom is 
wound up, and laid ready for work in the new Jerusalem. For 
myself, dear mother, I always feared sickness more than death ; 
because sickness hath made me unable to perform those offices 
for which I came into the world, and must yet be kept in it ; 
but you are freed from that fear, who have already abundantly 
discharged that part, having both ordered your family, and so 
brought up your children, that they have attained to the years 
of discretion and competent maintenance ; so that now, if they 
do not well, the fault cannot be charged on you, whose example 
and care of them will justify you both to the world and your 
own conscience ; insomuch, that whether you turn your thoughts 
on the life past, or on the joys that are to come, you have strong 
preservations against all disquiet. And for temporal afflictions, 
I beseech you consider, all that can happen to you are either 
afflictions of estate, or body, or mind. For those of estate, of 
what poor regard ought they to be, since, if we have riches, we 
are commanded to give them away ? So that the best use of 
them is, having, not to have them. But, perhaps, being above 
the common people, our credit and estimation call on us to live 
in a more splendid fashion. But, O God ! how easily is that 
answered, when we consider that the blessings in the Holy 
Scripture are never given to the rich, but to the poor. I never 
find * Blessed be the rich,' or * Blessed be the noble ;' but Blessed 
be the meek, and Blessed be the poor, and Blessed be the 
mourners, for they shall be comforted. And yet, O God ! 
most carry themselves so, as if they not only not desired, but 
even feared, to be blest. And for afflictions of the body, dear 
Madam, remember the holy martyrs of God, how they have 



GEORGE HERBERT. 249 

been burnt by thousands, and have endured such other tor- 
tures, as the very mention of them might beget amazement : 
but their fiery trials have had an end ; and yours (which, praised 
be God, are less) are not like to continue long. I beseech you, 
let such thoughts as these moderate your present fear and 
sorrow ; and know that if any of yours should prove a Goliah- 
like trouble, yet you may say with David, That God, who de- 
livered me out of the paws of the Lion and the Bear, will 
also deliver me out of the hands of this uncircumcised Phi- 
listine. Lastly, for those afflictions of the soul : consider that 
God intends that to be as a sacred temple for himself to dwell 
in, and will not allow any room there for such an inmate as 
grief, or allow that any sadness shall be his competitor. And, 
above all, if any care of future things molest you, remember 
those admirable words of the Psalmist : Cast thy care on the 
Lord, and he shall nourish thee. (Psalm Liv.) To which join 
that of St. Peter : Casting all your care upon Him, for he 
careth for you. (1 Pet., ch. v. ver. 7.) What an admirable thing 
it is, that God puts his shoulder to our burden, and entertains 
our care for us, that we may the more quietly intend his ser- 
vice. To conclude, let me commend only one place more to 
you, (Philip, iv. 4.) Saint Paul saith there, Rejoice in the 
Lord always; and again I say, rejoice. He doubles it to 
take away the scruple of those that might say, What, shall we 
rejoice in afflictions ! Yes, I say again, rejoice ; so that it is 
not left to us to rejoice, or not rejoice : but whatsoever befalls 
us, we must always, at all times, rejoice in the Lord, who taketh 
care for us. And it follows, in the next verse: Let your mo- 
deration appear unto all men; the Lord is at hand ; be careful 
for nothing. What can be said more comfortably ? Trouble 
not yourselves, God is at hand to deliver us from all, or in 
all. Dear Madam, pardon my boldness, and accept the good 
meaning of 

Your obedient son, 
Trin. Coll., May 25, 1622. George Herbert. 

In February, 1622-3, the Spanish and Austrian Am- 
bassadors visited Cambridge, and on Thursday, the 27th, 



250 GEORGE HERBERT. 

the University conferred on them the degree of M.A. 
On this occasion Herbert delivered a Latin speech, as 
laudatory and uninteresting as orations of that kind 
usually are*. 

The death of Dr. Parry, Bishop of St. Asaph, in the 
September of 1623, enabled the King to reward the 
merits of Herbert with the sinecure formerly given by 
Elizabeth to Sir Philip Sidney, and worth one hundred 
and twenty pounds per annum f. During Herbert's 
absence from Cambridge, the duties of orator were per- 
formed by his friend, Mr. Thorndike, a fellow of Trinity. 
Bishop Heber, in his life of Jeremy Taylor, professes his 
ignorance of Thorndike. But Bishop Taylor mentions 
him in a letter to Evelyn, dated June 4, 1659 ; and Dr. 
Hammond alludes to him in one of the Nineteen Letters 
published by Francis Peck. He also assisted Dr. 
Walton in the edition of the Polyglot Bible. 
| In one of his visits to Cambridge, James was accom- 
panied by Lord Bacon and Bishop Andrews, both of 

* Cole's MS. Coll. The speech is printed among True Copies of 
all the Latin Orations pronounced at Cambridge, 1623. 

t Herbert also gratified James by some Latin Epigrams against Andrew 
Melville, the leader of the Scottish Anti- Episcopal party. Melville 
wrote the following verses against the " chapel ornaments :" — 

Quod duo stant libri clausi Anglis Regia in Ara, 

Lumina caeca duo, pollubra sicca duo — 
An clausum caecumq: Dei tenet Anglia cultum 

Lumine caeca suo, sorde sepulta sua? 
Romano et ritu dum regalem instruit Aram, 
Purpuream pingit, luxuriosa lupam. 
Mr. George Herbert, of Trinity College, in Cambridge, says Fuller, 
made a most ingenious retortion of this Hexastich, which as yet, all my 
industry cannot recover. Yet it much contenteth me that I am certainly 
informed that the posthume remains (shavings of gold are carefully 
to be kept) of that not less pious, than witty, writer, are shortly to be 
put forth into print.— Church History, p. 70, book 10. folio, 1655. 

Herbert's Remains were published in 1652, containing the Country 
Parson, Jacula Prudentium, Prayer before and after Sermon, Epistle to 
Ferrar, Selected Apothegms, and two Latin poems to Lord Bacon, and 
one to Donne. 



GEORGE HERBERT. 251 

whom embraced the opportunity to form an acquaint- 
ance with Herbert. Walton could have no authority for 
affirming that Bacon permitted none of his works to be 
printed until they had received the sanction of Herbert 3 
but he manifested his respect for the poet's learning, by 
requesting his assistance in the translation of the 
Advancement of Learning. 

The history of this work is rather singular. It was 
originally published in English in 1605, and Lord Bacon 
very early expressed a wish to have it rendered into 
Latin, that it might become a " citizen of the world." 
With this view he wrote to Dr. Playfer, the Margaret 
Professor of Divinity, mentioning his labours in these 
curious terms. " Since I have only taken upon me to 
ring a bell to call other wits together (which is the 
meanest office), it cannot but be consonant with my 
desire to have that bell heard as far as can be." Dr. 
Playfer willingly engaged in the translation, but was 
unsuccessful in satisfying Lord Bacon. Archbishop 
Tenison observes, in the Baconiana, that the specimen 
which the professor sent to Lord Bacon was " of such 
superfine Latinity, that he did not encourage him to 
proceed any further in the work 5 in the penning of 
which he desired not so much neat and polite, as clear, 
masculine, and apt expression." This took place, Mr. 
Montague thinks, in 1606 or 1607 5 Hacket speaks of 
Dr. Playfer' s death in 1 608 *. At this time Herbert was 

* In Fletcher's Poetical Miscellany, p. 161, is the following Epitaph 
on Dr. Playfer : — 

Who lives with Death, by Death in Death is lying, 

But he who living dies, best lives by dying : 

Who life to truth, who death to error gives, 

In life may die, by death more surely lives. 

My soul in Heaven breathes, in schools my fame, 
Then on my tomb write nothing but my name. 



252 GEORGE HERBERT. 

a freshman of Trinity, having resided only two or three 
days. Hacket, who was elected with him, after praising 
the eloquence with which Williams, the future arch- 
bishop, had eulogized the merits of the departed scholar, 
informs us, that it was the second day on which " he 
had worne his purple gown." 

Writing many years after to the Bishop of Winches- 
ter, Lord Bacon speaks with evident satisfaction of 
having procured a translation of his book "into the 
general language." The version was performed, accord- 
ing to Archbishop Tenison, " by Mr. Herbert, and some 
others who were esteemed masters in the Roman elo- 
quence." The names of Ben Jonson, and Hobbes, the 
philosopher, deserve particular notice. The beautiful 
enthusiasm with which the poet vindicated his noble 
friend, in the hour of his sorrow and misfortune, must 
always do honour to the memory of both. 

Hobbes was an especial favourite with Lord Bacon, 
who delighted in his conversation, and always availed 
himself of his aid to " set down his thoughts," when 
sauntering along the shady walks of his beautiful park 
at Gorhambury. Hobbes was, in his own day, branded 
with the charge of atheism ; but his friend Aubrey 
endeavoured to remove the odium from his memory, by 
declaring that he received the sacrament when lying, as 
he thought, upon the bed of death. Yet it must be 
conceded that the author of the Leviathan was a most 
reckless and daring writer upon theology, advancing 
with a regardless step into the sacred precincts of the 
holy temple. That he was sincere in his efforts to pro- 
mote the happiness of mankind, without any intention 
of depreciating true religion, the careful reader of his 
works will not entirely refuse to admit. He failed 



GEORGE HERBERT. 253 

where the wisest must always fail — in making reason 
the touchstone of divinity. 

After undergoing the supervision of Lord Bacon, the 
translation was published with the title of De Dignitate 
et Augmentis Scientiarum. Of the contents of the book it 
would be idle, in this place, to attempt even a sketch, 
but I cannot pass over in silence a name which the 
world will not willingly let die. In an age of biography, 
it is somewhat strange that a full and accurate life of 
Bacon should still be wanting. 

The conclusion of the fifteenth century, and the com- 
mencement of the sixteenth, were marked by many 
momentous changes. The discovery of printing, to use 
the words of Degerando, had opened a new world to the 
wondering eyes of the student*. It was the era of the 
most extraordinary revolution which the physical sciences 
had ever undergone. Bacon, who, even in his sixteenth 
year, had shown a disposition to shake off the yoke of 
the Aristotelian philosophy, stood forth one of the first 
legislators of the new empire of the sciences. It was 
finely said by the University of Oxford, in the letter 
acknowledging the receipt of the De Augmentis Scient. ; 
that like some mighty Hercules of learning, he had, by 
his own hands, advanced further those pillars in the 
world of letters, which had hitherto been considered 
immoveable. But w T e must not suppose that he laboured 
alone -- Galileo, in Italy, Kepler, in Germany, and 
Gassendi, in France, led the inquiries of men forward in 
the same paths. 

* M. Degerando, Histoire Compart e des Systemes de Philosophie, 
2nd edition, Paris, 4 vols., 1822, Tom. i. p. 69. It is pleasing to observe 
the praise with which the Novum Organum was spoken of in France by 
Gassendi, who was one of the first to admit the wonderful genius of the 
author. He justly characterizes the labours of Bacon, by saying, ausu 
heroico novum tentare viam est ausus. 



254 GEORGE HERBERT. 

That he wrote in decided opposition to the dominant 
opinions of the age may be seen from the manner in 
which he commits his Novum Organum to the " bosom of 
his University 5" expressing a hope that " they be not 
troubled because the way in which he walks is new/' 
and attempting to palliate the revolution he was conscious 
of introducing into the old realms of science, by assert- 
ing such changes to be inevitable in the course of years. 
And he boldly lays the axe to the academic prejudices, 
by declaring implicit faith to be only due to the Word 
of God, and experience. 

Considered only with reference to his literary merits, 
lord Bacon stands eminent among the most celebrated 
writers of his age. He clothes every topic with a rich- 
ness of diction, and illustrates it with a fertility of fancy, 
equalled only by some of his contemporaries. His 
habits were those of a poet, and imparted a kindred 
splendour to his imagination. It was his custom to have 
music in an adjoining room while he meditated -, and at 
every meal his table was strewed with sweet herbs and 
flowers, which, he said, refreshed his spirits and memory. 
He adorned his domain with the rarest trees, and the 
most precious birds from foreign lands. The aviary at 
York-House cost him three hundred pounds. The 
splenetic Wilson says, that in many things he sought to 
be admired rather than understood ; but he revived the 
spirit of a beautiful and decaying philosophy, and 
brought Minerva amongst us once more, with the girdle 
of Venus in her bosom. 

The Chancellor was very intimate with Sir John 
Danvers, in whose garden at Chelsea he took great 
delight, and where he may have occasionally met our 
poet. One day, after walking some time in this garden 



GEORGE HERBERT. 255 

with Lady Danvers, he fell down in a swoon, and when 
he was partially recovered by the application of restora- 
tives, he pleasantly observed — "Madam, I am no good 
footman" His esteem for Herbert seems to have 
ripened into a genuine friendship 5 in 1625 he dedicated 
to him a translation of a few Psalms in these affectionate 
terms : — 

TO HIS VERY GOOD FRIEND, Mr. GEORGE HERBERT. 

The pains that it pleased you to take about some of my 
writings, I cannot forget, which did put me in mind to dedicate 
to you this poor exercise of my sickness. Besides, it being my 
manner for dedications to choose those that I hold most fit for 
the argument, I thought that in respect of divinity, whereof the 
one is the matter, and the other the style of this little writing, 
I could not make better choice. So, with signification of my 
love and acknowledgement, I ever rest 

Your affectionate friend, 

Fr. St. Albans. 

The Psalms versified are the 12th, 90th, 104th, 126th, 
13/th, and 149th, and are entirely destitute of merit, 
being equally deficient in force and harmony of ex- 
pression. 

The sudden and unexpected death, in 1625, of 
Lodowick Duke of Richmond, and James Marquis of 
Hamilton, followed, at a short interval, by that of the 
King himself, destroyed all Herbert's visions of political 
distinction, and recalled him to a nobler employment of 
his talents. But though the visitation was sent in 
mercy, the sufferer was not prepared to welcome it, and 
he retired to the house of a friend in Kent, where he 
lived so privately, says Walton, " and was such a lover 
of solitariness, as was judged to impair his health more 
than study had done." The whisperings of the Siren 



256 GEORGE HERBERT. 

still sounded in his ears, and his biographer represents 
him to have undergone many conflicts with himself, 
whether he should return to the " painted pleasures of 
a court life," or again devote his time to the study of 
divinity. It had been his mother's constant desire to 
see him in the church, and her prayers were soon to be 
accomplished. Still hesitating, he came to London and 
consulted a " court friend," who dissuaded him from 
entering the church, by flattering his vanity with the 
illusive honours which his birth and popularity put 
within his reach. But the film was purged from his 
eyes, and he beheld the worthlessness of the prizes he had 
before coveted. He repelled the attempts to undervalue 
the dignity of the priesthood. " It hath been formerly 
adjudged," he said, " that the domestic servants of the 
King of heaven should be of the noblest families on 
earth 5 and though the iniquity of late times hath made 
clergymen meanly valued, and the sacred name of 
Priest contemptible ; yet I will labour to make it 
honourable, by consecrating all my learning and all my 
poor abilities to advance the glory of that God who gave 
them, knowing that I can never do too much for him, 
that hath done so much for me as to make me a Chris- 
tian. I will labour to be like my Saviour, by making 
humility lovely in the sight of all men, and by following 
the merciful and meek example of my dear Jesus." 

He appears to have written the Quip while smarting 
under the ridicule of some fashionable acquaintance. 

The merry world did on a day 
With his train-bands and mates agree 
To meet together where I lay, 
And all in sport to jeer at me. 



GEORGE HERBERT. 257 

First Beauty crept into a rose, 
Which when I pluckt not, Sir, said she, 
Tell me, I pray, whose hands are those ? 
But Thou shalt answer, Lord, for me. 

Then Money came, and chinking still, 
What tune is this, poor man ? said he ; 
I heard in music you had skill — 
But Thou shalt answer, Lord, for me. 

Then came brave Glory puffing by 
In silks that whistled ; who but he ! 
He scarce allow' d me half an eye, 
But Thou shalt answer, Lord, for me. 

In this year he was ordained a Deacon, but the " day 
when, or by whom," Walton was unable to discover. 
On the 15th of July, 1626, he was made Prebendary of 
Leighton Ecclesia, in the Diocese of Lincoln, by Bishop 
Williams. Leighton is a village in Huntingdonshire, 
and the church was then in so dilapidated a state 
as to prevent the celebration of divine service. It had 
been in this condition almost twenty years, during 
which period various efforts had been made to rebuild it 
by subscription, but without success. Herbert applied 
himself to the completion of this good work with an 
ardour and perseverance that usually overcome dif- 
ficulties. When his mother, who was residing at 
Danvers- House, Chelsea*, heard of her son's intention, 
she sent for him, and urged him, under all the circum- 
stances, to return the prebend to the patron, adding 
that it was unreasonable to expect that he, with his 

* The family seat of Sir John Danvers was at Culworth, in Northamp- 
tonshire, but he lived generally at Chelsea. Danvers-House was pulled 
down in 1696, when Danvers-Street was built on the site. — Lysons's 
Environs of London, vol. ii. p. 123. 



258 GEORGE HERBERT. 

weak body and empty purse, should be able to build 
churches. Herbert is stated to have desired one day to 
consider his mother s advice, and on seeing her the 
second time, he entreated her " that she would, at the 
age of thirty-three, allow him to become an undutiful 
son 5 for he had made a vow to God, that if he were 
able, he would rebuild that church." 

So sweet and filial a spirit, united to such calm fixed- 
ness of purpose, might have prevailed on a more deter- 
mined opponent. Lady Danvers subscribed herself, and 
prevailed upon the Earl of Pembroke to give 50/., which 
he was induced to increase to 100/., by "a witty and 
persuasive letter" of Herbert. The Duke of Lenox, 
Sir Henry Herbert, Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, and Mr. 
Arthur Woodnot were among the list of benefactors. 

Leighton church gradually rose from its ruins beneath 
the unwearied assiduity of the workmen, whom Herbert 
cheered by his presence. Walton was misinformed, 
when he said that the "workmanship was a costly 
mosaic," and that Herbert lived to see it wainscoted, 
for in 1795 no tracer of either were to be seen*. The 
builder's primary object was simplicity. There were no 
communion-rails, but three steps conducted to the altar. 
The windows were large and handsome, and ornamented 
with some fragments of painted glass. The seats and 
pews were of oak, without any ornaments, showing the 
founder's wish to make no distinction between the rich 
and poor. The reading-desk and pulpit were placed 
near each other, and were of an equal height - 7 for 
Herbert often said, " that they should neither Have a 
precedency or a priority of the other $ but that prayer 

* See Walton s Lives, by Zouch, p. 306. 



GEORGE HERBERT. 259 

and preaching, being equally useful, might agree like 
brethren, and have an equal honour and estimation.'' 
In 1 795 the church had again fallen into partial ruin. 

Before we leave Herbert with his Prebend, something 
should be said of its munificent donor. A Life of Arch- 
bishop Williams, alike free from the adulation of Hacket *, 
and the malignity of Wilson, has long been a desidera- 
tum in our Ecclesiastical Biography. In the gorgeous- 
ness of his character, he may be thought to resemble 
the magnificent Wolsey : throughout his life he was a 
generous patron of learning. Trinity College partook 
largely of his liberality. Hacket enumerates ten indi- 
viduals gathered out of that society alone. Dr. Simson, 
the author of the Chronology , who had been Hacket's 
tutor, Dr. Meredith, James Duport, the most elegant 
Grecian of his age, H. Thorndike, Dr. Creichton, Dr. 
Fearn, M. A. Scattergood, &c. But Williams's patron- 
age of deserving men was not limited to the distribution 
of the preferments in his gift ; for many years he ex- 
pended annually, in the support of poor students at the 
University, the sum of twelve hundred pounds ; an in- 
stance of princely munificence, of which our literary 
history contains few examples. His own industry was 
intense and unwearied. He succeeded Lord Bacon in 
the Chancellorship, and applied himself with so much 
determination to the despatch of business, that he came 
into court two hours before day, " so as to be obliged to 

* Hacket, who was the Archbishop's Chaplain, wrote with the warmth 
of a friend, and the intemperance of a partisan. The style of the book 
is the strangest that can be imagined. It was intended not so much for 
the memoir of one person, as for a general treatise, and the author says, 
part ii. p. 229, that his " scope was not so much to insist upon the 
memorable things of one man's life, as to furnish them with reading out 
of his small store, that are well-wishers to learning in theological, poli- 
tical, and moral knowledge." To the student, however, this quaint folio 
is a treasure. 

s 2 



260 GEORGE HERBERT. 

sit by candle-light." Here he remained till eight or 
nine o'clock,, when his duties as Speaker called him to 
the House of Lords. His public occupations were rarely 
ended before the evening, and the greater portion of 
the night he devoted to his private studies. Hacket 
tells us he seldom retired to rest before three o'clock, 
and was ready to resume his employments at seven. 
From his political life truth might gather many shadows 
for this picture, but on that painful passage in his 
history, it is not necessary for me to dwell. I would 
rather remember him as the friend of Herbert, than the 
enemy of Laud. 

In the April of 1626 Lord Bacon died, and Herbert 
wrpte an Epigram on the event. 

X In Obitum Incomparabilis Francisci Vicecomitis 
Sancti Albani, Baronis Verulamii. 

Dum longi lentiq; gemis sub pondere raorbi, 

Atq; hseret dubio tabida vita pede; 
Quid voluit prudens fatum jam sentio tandem, 

Constat Aprile uno te potuisse mori : 
Ut flos hinc lacrymis, illinc Philomela querelis 

Deducant linguae funera sola tuse. 

These pretty conceits were not worthy of the poet or 
his friend. Upon the private life of Bacon, no admirer 
of his works will love to linger. We scarcely recognise 
the antagonist of Aristotle in the parasite of Villiers. 
The philosopher's letters to that profligate courtier are 
replete with the most ingenious sycophancy ; and his 
treatment of his early patron, Lord Essex, has left a 
cloud upon his memory which his fame cannot disperse. 
But under whatever aspect we view him, in the season 
of prosperity, the honoured servant of his sovereign, or 
in the " solitude of friends," and under the " ashes of 



GEORGE HERBERT. 261 

his fortune*/' his life is full of painful, yet salutary 
instruction. It teaches us that no genius, however 
mighty, no acquirements, however varied, will be pro- 
ductive of any real or lasting benefit to their possessor, 
unless tempered by virtue, and directed by religion. 

The death of Bacon was speedily followed by a far 
severer bereavement. Lady Danvers died in 1627; her 
health had been declining for several years, having never 
perfectly recovered from the effects of the illness, during 
which Herbert addressed to her the beautiful letter printed 
in a former page. Her funeral sermon was preached 
by Dr. Donne, with whom she became acquainted 
while residing at Oxford with her eldest son, and who 
had before celebrated her virtues in one of his poems : — 

Nor spring, nor summer beauty has such grace, 
As I have seen in an autumnal face. 

To the sermon are annexed some Latin and Greek 
verses, by Herbert, to the memory of his mother. 
Bitterly as he felt the loss, the affectionate child found 
comfort in the remembrance of his filial tenderness 
and meek obedience to her who was taken from 
him. His perverseness had never driven sleep from 
her pillow $ his unkindness had never drawn the tears 
from her eyes ; thus the house of mourning lost half 
its gloom. Lady Danvers was buried in Chelsea Church, 
and without any monument f. 

Soon after her death he resigned the Oratorship in 
favour of his friend, Robert Creichton. 

In 1629, being seized with a sharp quotidian ague, 

* His own words in a letter, I think, to Lord Dorset. 

t In the burial place in the church at Montgomery (belonging to the 
Castle) is a great free-stone monument of Richard Herbert, Esq., where 
are the effigies of himself and his wife Magdalene, afterwards married to 
Sir John Danvers, and who lies interred at Chelsea church, without any 
monument. — Aubrey. 



262 GEORGE HERBERT. 

he removed, for change of air, to the house of his brother 
Henry, at Woodford, in Essex. Sir Henry Herbert, 
who had imbibed the graces of a courtier at Paris, was 
Gentleman of the King's Privy Chamber, and Master 
of the Revels. At Woodford our poet remained twelve 
months. The lines in his poem entitled Affliction may 
have been written while at this place. 

At first thou gav'st me milk and sweetness, 

I had my wish and way ; 
My days were strewn with flowers and happiness, 

There was no month but May : 
But with my years, sorrow did twist and grow, 

Sickness clave my bones, 

Consuming agues dwell in every vein. 

In the hope of escaping from the consumptive sym- 
ptoms that still threatened him, he visited Dauntsey, in 
Wilts, the seat of his relative, the Earl of Danby, who 
entertained a sincere regard for the poet. The " choice 
air," aided by exercise and rural amusements, improved 
his health, and the long- cherished intention of devoting 
himself to the ministry was renewed in his heart. His 
singular marriage hastened this desired event. Between 
Herbert and Mr. Charles Danvers, of Bainton, an intimate 
friendship had subsisted for several years, and Mr. 
Danvers had been frequently heard to express a wish 
that he would marry any one of his nine daughters, but 
particularly Jane, who was her father's favourite. 
Nothing so much disposes us to admire an individual as 
the .praises of those we love, and it must have been from 
this cause that Jane Danvers " became so much a 
Platonic as to fall in love with Mr. Herbert unseen." 
This romantic incident happened fortunately for their 
union, for when Herbert arrived at Dauntsey, his friend 



GEORGE HERBERT. 263 

was no more. The lovers were, however, introduced to 
each other by the kind offices of their friends, and Jane 
Danvers " changed her name into Herbert, the third 
day" after the first interview. This lady was a kins- 
woman of Aubrey, who says, she was "a handsome 
bona-roba and generose." Bona-roba was one of the 
worthy antiquary's choicest phrases, and he applied it to 
the lovely Venetia Stanley, whose charms have been 
preserved by the pencil of Vandyke, and the pen of Ben 
Jonson. 

In the April of 1630, Herbert was suddenly deprived, 
by death, of his kind relation, William Earl of Pembroke. 
The name of this nobleman is embalmed in the eloquent 
sketch of Clarendon, and has long been associated with 
all that is honourable in the poetical history of the reign 
of James the First. He was an infant when his uncle, 
Sir Philip Sidney, died • but the groves of Penshurst 
were his frequent haunt, and within his view was the 
palace of Knowle, where the Wizard, Buckhurst, had 
called up the " terrific phantoms of his sombre and 
magnificent poetry." The son of " Sidney's sister," on 
whose lips the name of Spenser must have been a 
familiar word, could not but be a poet, at least in senti- 
ment. Had he been less elevated in rank, his genius 
might have grown into loftier stature. His poems are 
only trifles, from the hand of an elegant courtier ; but 
his memory will not die, until Ben Jonson shall be 
forgotten. 

Herbert could not have parted from Cambridge after 
a residence of nearly nineteen years, without regret. 
Never had the university been the home of more beloved 
and gifted children since the time when Spenser pur- 
sued his " sweet silent studies" in the quiet of Pern- 



264 GEORGE HERBERT. 

broke Hall. Herbert had gazed on faces whose lustre 
has not yet faded into the common day. At Christ's 
there was Milton, the "Lady of his college *;" the 
courtly Fanshaw, the translator of the Pastor Fido, was 
a member of Jesus 3 Jeremy Taylor, then a beautiful 
youth, was a poor Sizer of Caius ; Herrick enlivened St. 
John's with his festivity and wit - 9 Giles Fletcher was at 
Trinity, and his brother Phineas at King's 5 the names 
of the celebrated Calamy, and the historian Fuller, even 
in his boyhood a prodigy of learning 3 and Mede, the 
profoundest Scripture critic of the age 5 and many more 
might be added to the list. 

Herbert's friends were not unmindful of his interest, 
and on the promotion of Dr. Curie from the rectory of 
Bemerton to the Bishopric of Bath and Wells, Philip, 
Earl of Pembroke, to whom Herbert was Chaplain f, 
requested the King to "bestow the living upon his 
kinsman." "Most willingly to Mr. Herbert, if it be 
worthy of his acceptance," was the monarch's answer. 
We know that, in the subsequent imprisonment of the 
King, the poems of Herbert were his constant compa- 
nions $ these, with the Bible and two or three other books, 
constituted his library. We may believe, therefore, that 
he was already aware of the poet's piety and worth. 

This occurred about three months after his marriage. 
But Herbert, who, like his friend Dr. Donne, was pain- 
fully alive to the deep responsibility of the duties he was 
about to take upon him, had almost determined to 
decline the "priesthood and that living;" when his old 
and dear friend, Mr. Woodnot, came to see him at Bainton, 
where he was staying with his wife's relations, and they 
went together to thank Lord Pembroke for the presen- 

* So called on account of his beauty. t Aubrey. 



GEORGE HERBERT. 265 

tation. The King was then on a visit to the Earl at 
Wilton, attended by a numerous retinue, among whom 
was Dr. Laud, who, on hearing the scruples of .Herbert, 
" did so convince him," says Walton, " that the refusal 
of the living was a sin, that a tailor was sent for from 
Salisbury to Wilton to take measure, and make him 
canonical clothes against the next day, which the tailor 
did." From this anecdote we discover that a distinction 
of dress was not deemed requisite in persons admitted to 
Deacon's orders, for Herbert, though made Deacon in 
1626, had hitherto worn his sword and silk clothes. 

Being habited in his new dress, he went with his pre- 
sentation to the learned Dr. Davenant, then Bishop of 
Salisbury, who gave him immediate institution. Dr. 
Davenant had been Lady Margaret's Professor of 
Divinity, and President of Queen's College, while 
Herbert was at Cambridge. 

It was not at this time required that a clergyman 
should be in priest's orders before he could be admitted 
to a cure of souls -, but Herbert longed for the next 
Ember-week, that he might be ordained Priest, and 
rendered capable of administering both the sacraments. 
" At which time," says Walton, " the Rev. Dr. Humphrey 
Henchman laid his hand on Mr. Herbert's head." 

He was inducted to the living on the 26th of April, 
1630, and on being left alone in the church to " toll the 
bell," the sense of his situation so overpowered him, that 
when Mr. Woodnot, who was surprised at his long 
absence, looked through the window, he saw him lying 
on the ground before the altar. While in this lowly 
attitude, he afterwards told his friend, he " set rules for 
his future life, and made a vow to keep them." On the 
third day after his induction, he returned to his wife at 



266 GEORGE HERBERT. 

Bainton, and when he had saluted her, he said, " You 
are now a minister's wife, and must so far forget your 
father's house, as not to claim' a precedence of any of 
your parishioners." In the Country Parson he has left 
a picture of a clergyman's wife. " If he be married, the 
choice of his wife was made rather by his ear than his 
eye 5 his judgment, not his affection, found out a fit wife 
for him 5 whose humble and liberal disposition he pre- 
ferred before beauty, virtue, and honour." Some of 
these traits were, perhaps, taken from the character of 
his own companion, who gained, we are informed by 
Walton, " an unfeigned love, and a serviceable respect 
from all that conversed with her 5 and their love fol- 
lowed her in all places, as inseparably as shadows follow 
substances in sunshine." 

He remained only a short time at Bainton, and then 
returned to Bemerton. The old parsonage, through the 
neglect of the late incumbent, was very ruinous $ and 
Herbert, we learn from Aubrey, built a very handsome 
house, and made a good garden and walks for the 
minister. A sketch of the parsonage, as it then 
stood, was communicated by Archdeacon Coxe to Mr. 
Major for his edition of Walton s Lives in 1825. The 
house now retains few of its original features ; a little 
bedchamber, and one or two Mullion windows only 
remain 3 but until a comparatively recent period, the 
garden continued in the state it had been left in by the 
poet. The village of Bemerton, which Aubrey calls a 
" pitiful little chapel of ease to Foughleston," was, in 
later years, the secluded abode of the amiable John 
Norris, whose neglected compositions glow with the 
purest fervour of the Christian philosopher. 

We are now arrived at the most delightful epoch of 



GEORGE HERBERT. 267 

Herbert's life, when the courtier, the poet, and the 
scholar, became the lowliest servant of the altar of his 
God. He did not come to offer unto heaven the para- 
lytic thoughts of an exhausted intellect, or the wild 
fancies of an excited imagination ; his choice was the 
result of much mental deliberation, assisted by grace 
and direction from above. He was acquainted with the 
" ways of learning," and "the quick returns of courtesy 
and wit," yet he could say, with sincerity and truths 
" I love Thee." He knew 

— The ways of pleasure, the sweet strains 

The hillings and the relishes of it, 

The propositions of hot blood and brains ; 

What mirth and music mean ; what love and wit 

Have done these twenty hundred years and more. 

The Pearl. 

And he now only sought to be guided through the 
difficult and narrow path leading to the garden of 
eternal rest. His sense of the fleetingness of earthly 
loveliness is expressed in his poem on Virtue. 

Virtue. 

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, 
The bridal of the earth and sky, 
The dew shall weep thy fall to night, 
For thou must die. 

Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave, 
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye, 
Thy root is ever in its grave, 

And thou must die. 

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, 
A box where sweets compacted He, 
My music shows ye have your closes, 
And all must die. 



268 GEORGE HERBERT. 

Only a sweet and virtuous soul, 
Like season d timber, never gives ; 
But, though the whole world turns to coal, 
Then chiefly lives. 

The last stanza sinks into affectation, but still the 
immortality of Virtue is a noble idea. 

To impress more deeply on his mind the duties of a 
Christian pastor, he composed the Country Parson, which 
was published after his death by Barnabas Oley. With 
this little book, so simple in its style, and yet so 
touching in the affection of its exhortations, many of 
my readers are acquainted. It was the transcript of 
pure and gentle feelings, and reflects in every page the 
meekness and humility of the writer 5 it may be truly 
said to breathe of the "flowers in cottage windows," 
for among their humble occupants its author loved to 
dwell, cheering them in sorrow and sickness, and ever 
ready with a brotherly hand to dry the tears from their 
eyes. This slight volume leads us to regret the loss of 
his other prose writings. In a great measure free from 
the affectation of his poetry, it is at once simple and yet 
powerful, not laboured, yet elegant, and above all, 
earnest and sincere. He is not witty, nor learned, 
nor eloquent, but holy -, all his words, to use his own 
phrase, were seasoned and dipped in his heart before 
they were uttered by his lips. With him nothing is 
common, or insignificant, that bears any relation to 
the Almighty 5 if it had " the honour of that name, it 
grew great instantly*." 

Herbert's first sermon is said by Walton to have been 
delivered "after a most florid manner 5" but at the con- 
clusion he informed the congregation of his intention to 

* Country Parson, p. 50. 



GEORGE HERBERT. 269 

be in future more plain and practical, a promise to 
which he faithfully adhered. In all his subsequent 
sermons — alas, too few ! — the texts were constantly se- 
lected from the Gospel for the day -, and on the after- 
noon of each Sunday, he devoted half an hour, after 
the reading of the second lesson, to catechizing the con- 
gregation. Like the excellent Archbishop Usher, 'he 
attached great importance to this examination : he 
thought that religion ought to occupy a portion of 
every day, and it was his constant practice to perform 
the service of the Church twice a- day, at the hours of 
ten and four, in the chapel adjoining his house. His 
wife and the other members of his family were always 
present, and several of the neighbouring gentry were 
frequent attendants. Few of his own nock were ever 
absent, and many of his poorer parishioners " would let 
their plough rest" when his bell invited to prayer ; and, 
having partaken in that simple and beautiful worship, 
return to their rural employment. 

His manners and habits were in harmony with his 
professions ; every thing around him was plain and 
unostentatious. The pleasant picture in the Country 
Parson was probably copied from his own dwelling. 
"The furniture of his house is very plain, but clean, 
whole, and sweet; as sweet as his garden can make; for 
he hath no money for such things, charity being his 
only perfume." The " Country Parson's library," he 
felt to be, " a holy life." Music was his most grateful 
recreation at Bemerton, as it had formerly been at Cam- 
bridge. Aubrey says, he had a very good hand on the 
lute, to which he set many of his sacred poems. He 
usually walked twice a- week from his house to Salisbury, 
a distance of two miles, to hear the Anthem in the 



270 GEORGE HERBERT. 

Cathedral, observing that the time spent in prayer and 
solemn music elevated his soul, and was his heaven on 
earth. He has expressed this feeling in a poem, called 
Church Music: — 

Sweetest of sweets, I thank you ; when displeasure 
Did through my hody wound my mind, 

You took me thence, and in your house of pleasure 
A dainty lodging me assignd. 

Now I in you without a body move, 

Rising and falling with your wings, 
We both together sweetly live and love, 

Yet say sometimes, " God help poor Kings !" 

Comfort, 111 die ; for, if you post from me, 

Sure I shall do so and much more : 
But if I travel in your company, 

You know the way to heaven s door. 

The evenings of the days on which he visited the 
Cathedral, he frequently spent at a private music-meet- 
ing in the same city, a custom he justified by saying, 
that religion does not banish mirth, but only moderates 
and sets rules to it. 

Walton relates an anecdote of one of these walks to 
Salisbury. When Herbert was some way on his journey, 
he overtook a poor man, standing by a " poorer horse," 
that had fallen down beneath too heavy a burden 5 and 
seeing the distress of one, and the suffering of the other, 
he put off his canonical dress, and helped the man to 
unload, and afterward to reload the horse, and then 
giving him money to refresh himself and the animal, 
departed, at the same time telling him that if he loved 
himself he should be merciful to his beast. This inci- 
dent afforded a subject to the Royal Academican, 
Cooper, for an interesting design. 



GEORGE HERBERT. 271 

Donne's intimacy with Herbert's mother has been 
already noticed, and he entertained an equal regard for 
the poet. This sympathy was " maintained by many 
sacred endearments." Not long before Donne's death, 
" he caused to be drawn a figure of the body of Christ, 
extended upon an anchor," the emblem of hope. Many 
of these figures were minutely engraved on heliotropes, 
called by the jewellers, from their peculiar colour, blood- 
stones, and being set in gold, under the form of seals or 
rings, were sent to some of his friends as tokens of his 
esteem. Among these were the learned Sir Henry 
Wotton, the eloquent Bishop Hall, Dr. Duppa, Dr. 
Henry King, Bishop of Chichester, and George Herbert, 
to whom the gift was accompanied by some verses, full 
of affectionate piety and interest in his welfare. An 
engraving of one of the seals, traditionally handed 
down as the identical one belonging to Herbert, was 
given in the 77th volume of the Gentleman s Magazine*. 

No reader of Donne's poetry would imagine him to 
have been a high-minded enthusiast, overflowing with 
romance and kindliness. While he was in Spain, he 
prepared to visit the Holy Sepulchre, and only relin- 
quished the undertaking when convinced of its imprac- 
ticability. And when he wrote from the fire-side in his 
parlour, (i in the noise of three gamesome children, and 
by the side of her whom he had transplanted into a 
wretched fortune," and therefore laboured the more to 
beguile her sorrows by his " company and discourse," 
all his words were dictated by domestic tenderness f. 
As a poet, he has not had his reward ; he has perished 
through not being understood. His friend, Ben Jonson, 

* Part i. p. 313. t See Letters, ed. 1654, p. 137. 



272 GEORGE HERBERT. 

considered his applause the guarantee of future fame, 
and was fond of repeating that passage in the Calm ; — 

And in one place lay 



Feathers and dust, to day, and yesterday*. 

His versification is modulated with no art, and the 
location of the words is often careless and incorrect 5 
but some of his strains have a depth of meaning, and a 
solemnity of thought, not found in his smoother rivals. 
A Hymn, composed on a sick-bed, presents a fine speci- 
men of his manner : — 

To God the Father. 
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I begun, 

Which was my sin, though it was done before ? 
Wilt Thou forgive that sin through which I run, 

And do run still, though still I do deplore ? 
When Thou hast done, thou hast not done, 
For I have more. 

Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won 
Others to sin, and made my sin their door? 

Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun, 
A year or two, but wallow'd in a score ? 

When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done, 
For I have more. 

I have a sin of fear, that when I've spun 
My last thread I shall perish on the shore ; 

But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy sun 
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore ; 

And having done that, Thou hast done — 
I fear no more. 

This Hymn was set to " a most grave and solemn 
tune," and he delighted to hear it sung to the organ by 

* This anecdote is told on the authority of Drummond of Hawthorn- 
den, but the lines referred to are printed from the edition of Donne's 
Poems in 1650. Drummond, quoting, perhaps, from memory, writes 
them thus, " Dust and feathers do not stirr, all was so quiet." 



GEORGE HERBERT. 2/3 

the choristers of St. Paul's, at the evening service. 
Like Herbert, he was an ardent admirer of Sacred 
melody, and was wont to exclaim, u O, the power of 
Church-music.' ' From Donne's Holy Sonnets, one 
extract may be offered. The thought on Death is not 
unworthy of the bard who knelt at " the footstool of the 
Ancient of Days." 

Death be not proud, though some have called thee 

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so, 

For those whom thou think' st thou dost overthrow, 

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me ; 

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, 

Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow ; 

And soonest our best men with thee do go, 

Rest of their bones, and souls' delivery. 

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, 

And dost with poison, war, and sickness, dwell ; 

And poppy, or charms, can make us sleep as well, 

And better than thy stroke; why swell' st thou then ? 

Our short sleep past, we wake eternally, 

And Death shall be no more — Death thou shalt die ! 

But the evening of Herbert's life was rapidly drawing 
nigh. His constitution, always delicate, evinced sym- 
ptoms of a fatal decline. The sword had worn out the 
scabbard 5 but he did not cease to labour 3 and in the 
midst of his griefs, prepared some notes for The Con- 
siderations of John Valdesso, a Spanish reformer of the 
16th century, which his friend, Mr. Ferrar, had trans- 
lated, and sent them to him with a letter, printed in 
his Remains. 

Unaffected by the ills of the body, the inner man 
grew stronger every hour ; and although almost unable 
to leave his house, he still persevered in reading prayers 

T 



274 GEORGE HERBERT. 

twice a- day in his chapel, until prevailed on by the 
importunities of his wife to confide the duty to his 
Curate,, Mr. Bostock. About a month before his death, 
Mr. N. Ferrar, whom I believe he had not met since 
their separation at Cambridge, sent Mr. Edmund Duncon 
to inquire after his health, and to assure him of his 
prayers *. When Mr. Duncon entered the room, Her- 
bert was lying on the bed quite exhausted, but turning 
to him he said, "I see by your habit that you are a 
Priest, and I desire you to pray with me." When Mr. 
Duncon asked what prayers he would prefer, he replied, 
"O, Sir, the prayers of my mother, the Church of 
England -, no other prayers are equal to them." He 
was, however, too weak to hear more than the Litany. 
Mr. Duncon remained at Bemerton three weeks, when 
his place was supplied by one of Herbert's dearest 
friends, Mr. A. Woodnot; who declared, after the 
lapse of well-nigh forty years, that the patience and 
resignation of the sufferer were fresh in his memory. 

Walton's narrative of the last days of the poet is 
exceedingly pathetic. On the Sunday preceding his 
death, he called for his lute, and played and sung a 
verse from his poem named Sunday. Thus he con- 
tinued meditating, and praying, and rejoicing, until he 
expired. On the morning of that melancholy day, he 
said to Mr. Woodnot : " My dear friend, I am sorry I 
have nothing to present to my merciful God, but sin 
and misery 5 but the first is pardoned, and a few hours 

* " On Friday (date not mentioned), Mr. Mapletoft brought us word 
that Mr. Herbert was said to be past hope of recovery, which was very 
grievous news to us, and so much the more so, being altogether unexpected . 
We presently, therefore, made our public supplication for his health, 
in the words and manner following." The prayer is printed in the 
appendix to the life of Nicholas Ferrar, in Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical 
Biography, vol. v., p. 265. 



GEORGE HERBERT. 2/5 

will now put a period to the latter, for I shall suddenly 
go hence, and be no more seen." 

When Mr. Woodnot reminded him of his benefactions 
to Leighton Church, and his numberless acts of private 
charity, he orily answered, " They be good works if they 
be sprinkled with the blood of Christ, and not otherwise." 

He often conversed with his wife and Mr. Woodnot 
about his approaching dissolution. "I now look back," 
he said, " upon the pleasures of my life past, and see 
the content I have taken in beauty, in wit, in music, 
and pleasant conversation, which are now all past by 
me like a dream, or as a shadow that returns not, and 
are all now become dead to me, or I to them -, and I 
see, that as my father and generation have done before 
me, so I, also, shall now suddenly (with Job) make my 
bed in the dark. And I praise God I am prepared for 
it 5 and I praise him I am not to learn patience now I 
stand in such need of it 5 and that I have practised 
mortification, and endeavoured to die daily, that I 
might not die eternally 3 and my hope is, that I shall 
shortly leave this valley of tears, and be free from f all 
fever and pain $ and, which will be a more happy con- 
dition, I shall be free from sin, and all the temptations 
and anxieties that attend it. And this being past, I shall 
dwell in the New Jerusalem, dwell there with men made 
perfect, dwell where these eyes shall see my Master and 
Saviour, Jesus 5 and with him see my dear mother, and 
all my relations and friends." 

Thus the hours of his sickness became hours of re- 
joicing, and a light that went not out shone over the 
dark chamber, for he felt that he was "going daily 
towards" his final resting-place. 

After this discourse he became more restless, and 

t 2 



276 GEORGE HERBERT. 

"his soul/' says Walton, "seemed to be weary of her 
earthly tabernacle 5 and this uneasiness became so 
visible, that his wife, his three nieces, and Mr. Woodnot, 
stood constantly about his bed, beholding him with 
sorrow, and an unwillingness to lose the sight of him, 
which they could not hope to see much longer. As 
they stood thus beholding him, his wife observed him to 
breathe faintly, and with much trouble, and observed 
him to a fall into a sudden agony, which so surprised 
her, that she fell into a sudden passion, and required of 
him to know how he did. To which his answer was, 
that he had passed a conflict with his last enemy, and had 
overcome him by the merits of his Master, Jesus. After 
which answer, he looked up and saw his wife and nieces 
weeping to an extremity, and charged them, if they loved 
him, to withdraw into the next room, and there pray, every 
one alone, for him, for nothing but their lamentations could 
make his death uncomfortable." 

Being left with Mr. Woodnot and Mr. Bostock, he 
requested the former to look into the cabinet that stood 
in the room, and take out his will 5 and having obtained 
Mr. Woodnot's promise to be his executor for his wife 
and nieces, he said, / am now ready to die; and soon after 
added, Lord, forsake me not, now my strength faileth me-, 
but grant me mercies for the merits of my Jesus. And now, 
Lord — Lord, now receive my soul; and with these words 
he expired so placidly, that neither of his friends, who 
hung over him, knew of his departure. 

With so much serenity was this Christian poet gathered 
to his fathers, " unspotted of the world, full of alms- 
deeds, full of humility, and all the examples of a virtuous 
life." Wherefore, then, should we weep for the pilgrim 
who thus early in the summer-time set out for the celes- 



GEORGE HERBERT. 277 

tial country, where they whom he loved were gone before, 
and where his beautiful piety taught him to believe that 
his mother's arms were longing for her absent son. 
Although he was young in years, he was rich in 
good works. 

It is not growing, like a tree, 

In bulk, doth make man better be. 

A lily of the day 

Is fairer far in May ; 

Although it fall and die that night, 

It was the flower and plant of light. 

Ben Jonson. 

The flower was only transplanted into a heavenly 
garden, where no storm can ever prevail against it*. 

Herbert was buried, according to his own desire, with 
the singing-service for the burial of the dead, by the 
singing-men of Sarum. We derive this information 
from Aubrey, whose uncle, T. Danvers, was at the 
funeral. The parish Register of Bemerton states, that 
" Mr. George Herbert, Esq., Parson of Fuggleston and 
Bemerton, was buried the 3rd of March, 1632." He lies 
in the chancel, " under no large, nor yet very good 
marble grave-stone, without any inscription f$" and 
when an admirer of his virtues and poetry made a visit 
to the church in 1831, he found the altar raised by a 
platform of wood, and the pavement entirely concealed. 

Herbert, we are told by Walton, who had seen him, 
was of (c a stature inclining towards leanness ; his body 
was very straight, and so far from being cumbered with 
too much flesh, that he was lean to an extremity. His 
aspect was cheerful, and his speech and motion did both 

* See the " Flower," in the Temple. 
t Aubrey. 



278 GEORGE HERBERT. 

declare him a gentleman $ for they were all so meek and 
obliging, that they purchased love and respect from all 
that knew him." I may add from Aubrey, that he was 
of a very fine complexion. The benevolent expression 
of his countenance is known from his portrait *, to 
which Spenser's lines on Sir Philip Sidney, may be 
applied. 

A sweet attractive kind of grace, 

A full assurance given by looks, 
Continual comforts in a face, 

The lineaments of Gospel-books. 

His manners corresponded with the sweetness of his 
features. " His life," says his eldest brother, " was most 
holy and exemplary, insomuch, that about Salisbury, 
where he lived beneficed for many years, he was little 
less than sainted. He was not exempt from passion 
and choler, being infirmities to which all our race is 
subject 3 but that excepted, without reproach in all his 
actions." Anger, we may be assured, could never long 
be the inmate of so gentle a bosom. 

His virtues were active, and adapted to the wants of 
human life 5 in the words of one of our greatest divines, 
when speaking of a departed friend, they form a little 
volume, which we may constantly carry in our bosom. 
As a son, he was most amiable 5 his tender respect to his 
mother increased with his years -, he alleviated her sor- 
rows, covered her imperfections, and comforted her 
age. In the discharge of his sacred office he was 
diligent and unwearied -, every cottage-threshold was 
familiar to his feet, and his charity was only bounded 

* Prefixed to his " Works," 1709, by G. Sturt. 

■ Poems, by R. White. 

Bromley's Catalogue of Engraved Heads, p. 87. 



GEORGE HERBERT. 279 

by his means. The sadness, which he considered one 
of the most becoming characteristics of a clergyman, 
was in his own case relieved by a decent and serene 
mirth ; for he said, that nature could not ' ' bear ever- 
lasting droopings," and that pleasantness of disposition 
was "a great way to do good." The writer of the 
sketch prefixed to his Remains, speaks of his "con- 
scientious expense of time, which he ever measured by 
the pulse, that native watch God has set in every one 
of us. His eminent temperance and frugality 3 his 
private fastings 5 his mortifications of the body; his 
extemporary exercises at the sight or visit of a charnel- 
house, where every bone before the day rises up in 
judgment against fleshly lust and pride 5 at the stroke 
of a passing-bell, when ancient charity used, said he, 
to run to church and assist the dying Christian with 
prayers and tears." He was also scrupulously careful 
in the observance of all appointed fasts, and he welcomed 
the "dear fast of Lent" in a poem of several stanzas. 
He suffered no opportunity to escape of inculcating the 
truths of the Gospel. In the chancel of the Church, 
we are informed by Aubrey, were many apt sentences of 
Scripture. At his wife's seat, My life is hid with Christ 
in God. Coloss. hi. 3, — a text which he has taken for 
the subject of one of his poems ; and above, " in a 
little window blinded within a veil ill-painted," Thou 
art my hiding-place. Psalm xxxii. 

Besides his musical recreations, he was very fond 
of angling, which was then a favourite amusement of 
many eminent men. Donne was " a great practitioner 
and patron" of the art: Duport, the Greek professor, 
styled himself candidatum arundinis; and Sir Henry Wot- 
ton described angling as "idle time, not idly spent." 



280 GEORGE HERBERT. ' 

Herbert's literary talents are not to be estimated from 
his productions. " God/' he said, "has broken into my 
study, and taken off my chariot- wheels : I have nothing 
worthy of God." His youth was devoted to the ac- 
quirement of academic praise. In his maturer years, 
the allurements of a learned Court, and the prospect of 
fame and honour promised by the favour of the King, 
served to distract his mind from any great pursuit 5 and 
when he entered the Church, he put away all objects of 
worldly ambition, and only sought to prove himself a 
true and humble disciple of his Master. His scholar- 
ship was sound and elegant 5 the freedom and vigour 
of his Latin style were acknowledged by Lord Bacon, 
and Bishop Andrews carried a Greek letter written by 
him in his bosom. We may infer that he was also 
a good mathematician 5 for in the Country Parson he 
recommends "the mathematics as the only wonder- 
working knowledge." 

Of his acquaintance with Italian, he has only left us 
a slight testimony, in the translation of Cornaro's 
Treatise on Temperance, a work he undertook at "the 
request of a noble personage," and of which he sent 
a copy, not many months before his death, to a few 
friends who were forming a plan of diet-regulation. The 
second edition was published at Cambridge, in 1634, 
with the Hygiasticon of Leonard Lessius. 

As a poet, he once enjoyed a wonderful popularity 5 
and when Walton wrote, twenty thousand copies of the 
Temple had been circulated. The first edition ap- 
peared at Cambridge in 1 633 *. The history of this 
work is beautiful. Having taken leave of Mr. Duncon, 
and intrusted him with a message to " his brother Ferrar," 

* It had reached a seventh in 1656. 



GEORGE HERBERT. 281 

he did, says Walton, with so sweet a humility as seemed 
to exalt him, bow down to Mr. Duncon, and with a 
thoughtful and contented look, say, " Sir, I pray deliver 
this little book to my dear brother Ferrar, and tell him 
he shall find in it a picture of the many spiritual con- 
flicts that have- passed between God and my soul, before 
I could subject mine to the will of Jesus, my Master, 
in whose service I have now found perfect freedom. 
Desire him to read it $ and then, if he can think it may 
turn to the advantage of any poor, dejected soul, let it 
be m^de public $ if not, let him burn it. For I, and it, 
are less than the least of God's mercies." His poetical 
character has been drawn, with considerable accuracy, 
by Baxter. This celebrated non-conformist had, in his 
youth, been introduced to the notice of Sir Henry Her- 
bert, by whom he was kindly received : but he had not 
resided at Whitehall more than a month, when he was 
"glad to be gone," being offended with the negligent 
observance of the Sabbath. " But I must confess," he 
says, " after all, that next the Scripture Poems, there 
are none so savoury to me, as Mr. George Herbert's. 
I know that Cowley, and others, far excel Herbert in 
wit and accurate composure 3 but as Seneca takes with 
me above all his contemporaries, because he speaketh 
things by words feelingly and seriously, like a man that 
is past jest, so Herbert speaks to God, like a man that 
really believeth in God, and whose business in the world 
is most with God : heart- work and heaven-work make 
up his books *." 

If Herbert had been less enthusiastic in his devotional 
feelings, his poems would have been more generally 
interesting 5 they are, for the most part, brief prayers, 

* From Poetical Fragments, &c, 1681. 



282 GEORGE HERBERT. 

or paraphrases on Scripture, expressed in verse 5 and 
when they were composed, their author must have been 
frequently in a higher state " than poetry can confer." 
Yet there is nothing in the Temple to authorize the asser- 
tion of a modern critic*, that it is "a compound of 
enthusiasm without sublimity, and conceit without in- 
genuity or imagination." The pathetic lines on Employ- 
ment, surely demand a more favourable judgment : — 

If, as a flower doth spread and die, 
Thou would' st extend me to some good, 
Before I were by frost's extremity 
Nipt in the bud ; 

The sweetness and the praise were Thine, 
But the extension and the room, 
Which in Thy garland I should fill, were mine 
At the great doom. 

For as thou dost impart Thy grace, 
The greater shall our glory be, 
The measure of our joys is in this place, 
The stuff with Thee. 

Let me not languish, then, and spend 
A life as barren to Thy praise, 
As is the dust to which that life doth tend, 
But with delays. 

All things are busy, only I 
Neither bring honey with the bees, 
Nor flowers to make that, nor the husbandry 
To water these. 

I am no link of thy great chain, 
For all my company is as a weed ; 
Lord, place me in Thy comfort, give one strain 
To my poor reed. 

And these lines upon Grace are equally plaintive and 

* Headley, in Select Specimens. 



GEORGE HERBERT. 283 

harmonious 5 the thought in the third stanza is very 
pleasing, and the concluding prayer of the poet is the 
more affecting, from the remembrance of its speedy 
fulfilment : — 

My stock lies dead, and no increase 
Doth my dull husbandry improve ; 
O, let Thy graces, without cease, 

Drop from above ! 

If still the sun should hide his face, 
Thy house would but a dungeon prove, 
Thy works night's captives; O, let grace 

Drop from above ! 
The dew doth every morning fall, 
And shall the dew outstrip Thy dove ? 
The dew for which grass cannot call, 

Drop from above ! 

come, for Thou dost know the way, 
Or, if to me Thou wilt not move, 
Remove me where I need not say, 

Drop from above ! 

This stanza, from Content, has much grace and 
melody : — 

Give me the pliant mind, whose gentle measure 

Complies and suits with all estates, 
Which can let loose to a crown ; and yet with pleasure 

Take up within a cloister s gate. 

The poem on Life is, in the conception, very beautiful, 
and some of the lines could only have emanated from a 
mind of true poetical feeling; but the same affected 
taste which marred the verses upon Virtue, is also 
discoverable here: — 

1 made a posie while the day ran by ; 
Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie 

My life within this band : 



284 GEORGE HERBERT, 

But time did beckon to the flowers, and they 
By noon most cunningly did steal away 
And wither in my hand, 

My hand was next to them, and then my heart, 
I took, without more thinking, in good part, 

Time's gentle admonition : 
Who did so sweetly Death's sad taste convey, 
Making my mind to smell my fatal day, 

Yet sug'ring the suspicion. 

Farewell, dear flowers ! Sweetly your time ye spent, 
Fit while ye lived, for smell and ornament, 

And after death for cures. 
I follow straight, without complaints or grief, 
Since if my scent be good, I care not if 

It be as brief as yours. 

Of the epithets and individual thoughts that ever 
distinguish the work of a true poet, the Temple affords 
more specimens than I have space to enumerate. But 
one exquisite verse may be quoted, in which the ap- 
pearance of the Church of God is contrasted with the 
pomps of earth : — 

And when I view abroad both regiments, 

The world's and Thine ; 
Thine clad with simpleness and sad events, 

The other fine, &c. Frailty. 

How the blessed names of those who have suffered 
and died in defence of our religion arise to our remem- 
brance, when we read these words! We think of 
Latimer, of Cranmer, and Ridley, and the glorious 
company of sainted martyrs, whom they guided unto 
eternal glory. 

The next poem is given only as an example of the 
meek and Scriptural tone of the author's mind. 



GEORGE HERBERT. 285 

Unkindness. 

Lord, make me coy and tender to offend ; 
In friendship, first I think if that agree 
Which I intend, 
Unto my friend's intent and end 
I would not use a friend as I use Thee. 

If any touch my friend, or his good name, 
It is my honour and my love to free 
His blasted fame 
From the least spot or thought of blame. 
I could not use a friend as I use Thee. 

When that my friend pretendeth to a place, 
I quit my interest and leave it free ; 
But when Thy grace 
Sues for my heart, I Thee displace ; 
Nor would I use a friend as I use Thee. 

Yet, can a friend what Thou hast done fulfil ? 
Or write in brass, " My God upon a tree, 
" His blood did spill, 
" Only to purchase my good will :" 
Yet use I not my foes as I use Thee. 

These specimens from the Temple cannot be brought 
to a close in more appropriate words than Walton's 
eloquent eulogy of the work, in the Life of Donne. IC It 
is a book/' he says, " in which, by declaring his own 
spiritual conflicts, he hath comforted and raised many a 
dejected and discomposed soul, and charmed them into 
sweet and quiet thoughts ; a book, by the reading 
whereof, and the assistance of that spirit that seemed 
to inspire the author, the reader may attain habits of 
peace and piety, and all the gifts of the Holy Ghost 
and heaven, and may, by still reading, still keep those 
sacred fires burning upon the altar of so pure a heart 



286 GEORGE HERBERT. 

as shall free it from the anxieties of this world, and 
keep it fixed upon things that are above." 

The writer would have wished no higher praise, yet 
the extracts I have given may incline the reader to con- 
sider the Temple deserving of study, for a better reason 
than that for which Pope is said frequently to have 
perused it *. A few of the poems were translated into 
Latin, and published, with others, by W. Dillingham f. 

Granger asserts, that the poems annexed to the 
Temple were written by Crashaw -, but the translator of 
the Sospetto d'Herode could never have subdued his 
genius to the level of the Synagogue. Granger may 
have been led into error by Crashaw' s lines On Mr. G. 
Herbert's Book, of which he was a warm admirer. Sir 
John Hawkins, in his edition of Walton's Angler, says, 
that Christopher Harvey was the author 5 but whether 
he was the same individual who was Rector of Clifton 
in Warwickshire, and died in 1663, cannot be deter- 
mined. The doubt is not worth the solving. 

Herbert's circle of acquaintance embraced some of 
his most eminent contemporaries. It will be sufficient 
to name Sir Henry Wotton, the friend of Milton, Sir 
Henry Goodyere, Dudley, the third Lord North, and 
James Duport. Sir H. Goodyere was the frequent 
correspondent of Donne, who says, in a letter addressed 
to him, " Mr. George Herbert is here at the receipt of 
your letter, and with service to you, tells you that all 
at Uvedall House are well|." Lord North was one of 
the most distinguished noblemen of the Court of James 
the First; but, having dissipated the larger portion of 

* Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope, p. 85. 
t Poemata Varii Argumenti Partim e Georgio Herberto Latine 
Reddita. 
t Letters, 1651, p. 236. 



GEORGE HERBERT. 287 

his estate, he retired to the country, and lived in peni- 
tence, or at least in solitude, on the remainder. He 
published a volume of Miscellanies in 1645, under the 
title of A Forest of Varieties, containing, among other 
poems, a series of devotions, in imitation of the 1 1 9th 
Psalm. In the introduction, he speaks of the " divinest 
Herbert*." 

Mrs. Herbert survived her husband, and " continued, 
says Walton, his disconsolate widow about six years, 
bemoaning herself, and complaining that she had lost 
the delight of her eyes." Thus she continued, "till con- 
versation and time had so moderated her sorrows that 
she became the happy wife of Sir Robert Cook, of 
Highnam, in the county of Gloucester. But she never 
forgot to mention the name of Mr. George Herbert, and 
say that name must live in her memory till she put off 
mortality." She also " preserved many of Mr. Herbert's 
private writings, which she intended to make public ; 
but they and Highnam House were burnt together by 
the late rebels, and so lost to posterity." Aubrey's 
account of their disappearance is not so satisfactory. 
Herbert, he says, wrote a folio, in Latin, which, because 
the parson of Hineham could not read, his widow (then 
wife to Sir Robert Cook) condemned to the use of 
good housewifery. This intelligence was communicated 
to Aubrey by Mr. Arnold Cook, one of the sons of Sir 
Robert, whom he had desired to ask his mother-in-law 
for Herbert's MSS. 

* Sir Egerton Brydges has given copious extracts from this volume, 
in the Peers of James, 4to., p. 349, &c. 



HABINGTON, VAUGHAN, &c. 



William Habington was born at Hendlip, in Wor- 
cestershire, on the 4th or 5th of November, 1605. His 
name has derived an historical interest from the im- 
puted connexion of his father with the Gunpowder 
Plot, some of the agents of which he was accused of 
concealing in his house. But this charge rests on very- 
doubtful authority; and Mr. Nash, the author of the 
History of Worcestershire, discovered at Hendlip several 
letters, written by Habington to his wife and friends, 
declaring his entire ignorance of the conspiracy. Wil- 
liam was educated at St. Omer's, and afterwards at 
Paris. To relieve himself from the solicitations of the 
Jesuits, who sought to win him to their order, he re- 
turned to England, and finished his studies under the 
direction of his father, who was a scholar and a man of 
industry. Through the care of his affectionate tutor, 
he "grew into an accomplished gentleman 5" and at 
an early age married Lucia, daughter of Lord Powis, 
and who is said by Winstanley, to have been a lady 
of rare endowments and beauty. Habington seems to 
have appreciated his good fortune, and to have taken 
no part in the political tumults which so afflicted his 
country. The insinuation of Wood, that he " did run 
with the times, and was not unknown to Oliver, the 
Usurper," is refuted by the character of his poetry, 
and the nature of his creed. There could be no bond 
of union between the papist and the puritan. He died 
November 30, 1654*, and was buried in the family 
vault at Hendlip. 

* Chalmers says, November 13th, 1645; but he gives no reason for 
rejecting the date of Anthony Wood, who received his information 
from the poet's son. 



HABINGTON. 289 

Time has dealt less harshly with his rhymes than with 
those of more gifted bards. His poems have been twice 
reprinted within a few years ; by Chalmers, in the British 
Poets, and separately, by C. A. Elton, at Bristol. His own 
opinion of their merits was very humble. They were at 
first privately circulated among his friends, and the 
press afterwards bound " together what fancy had scat- 
tered into many loose papers." " Had I slept," he says, 
"in the silence of my acquaintance, and affected no 
study beyond what the chase or field allows, poetry had 
then been no scandal upon me, and the love of learning 
no suspicion of ill husbandry. If these lines want that 
courtship which insinuates itself into the favour of great 
men, best, they partake of my modesty ; if satire, to win 
applause with the envious multitude, they express my 
content, which maliceth none the fruition of that they 
esteem happy. The great charm of his writings is their 
purity and domestic tenderness $ the religion of his 
fancy is never betrayed into any unbecoming mirth, or 
rapturous enthusiasm. He is always amiable, simple, 
and unaffected : if he has not the ingenuity of some of 
his rivals, he is also free from their conceits. Gold ceases 
to be of any real value when it is only fashioned into 
baubles. His prose, however, excels his verse. The cha- 
racter of a Holy Man will be accepted by all Christians 
as a delightful portrait of sincere and tolerant piety. 

A Holy Man 
Is only happy, for infelicity and sin were born twins ; or rather, 
like some prodigy with two bodies, both draw and expire the 
same breath. Catholic faith is the foundation on which he 
erects Religion, knowing it a ruinous madness to build in the 
air of a private spirit, or on the sands of any new schism. His 
impiety is not so bold as to bring divinity down to the mistake 
of reason, or to deny those mysteries his apprehension reacheth 

u 



290 HABINGTON. 

not. His obedience moves still by direction of the magistrate ; 
and should conscience inform him that the command is unjust, 
he judgeth it nevertheless high treason, by rebellion, to make 
good his tenets ; as it were the basest cowardice, by dissimula- 
tion of religion, to preserve temporal respects. He knows 
human policy but a crooked rule of action, and, therefore, by 
a distrust of his own knowledge, attains it ; confounding with 
supernatural illumination, the opinionated judgment of the 
wise. In prosperity he greatly admires the bounty of the 
Almighty Giver, and useth, not abuseth, plenty ; but in adversity 
he remains unshaken, and, like some eminent mountain, hath 
his head above the clouds. For his happiness is not meteor- 
like, exhaled from the vapours of this world, but it shines a fixt 
star, which when by misfortune it appears to fall, only casts 
away the slimy matter. Poverty he neither fears nor covets, 
but cheerfully entertains, imagining it the fire which tries 
virtue ; nor how tyrannically soever it usurp on him doth he 
pay to it a sigh or wrinkle ; for he who suffers want without 
reluctancy, may be poor, not miserable. He sees the covetous 
prosper by usury, yet waxeth not lean with envy ; and when 
the posterity of the impious flourish, he questions not the 
Divine justice ; for temporal rewards distinguish not ever 
the merits of men. * * * Fame he weighs not, but 
esteems a smoke, yet such as carries with it the sweetest 
odour, and riseth usually from the sacrifice of our best actions. 
Pride he disdains, when he finds it swelling in himself, but 
easily forgiveth it in another. * * * He doth not malice 
the over-spreading growth of his equals, but pities, not de- 
spiseth, the fall of any man ; esteeming yet no storm of fortune 
dangerous, but what is raised through our own demerit. 
***** In conversation, his carriage is neither 
plausible to flattery, nor reserved to rigour, but he so demeans 
himself as created for society. In solitude he remembers his 
better part is angelical, and, therefore, his mind practiseth 
the best discourse without assistance of inferior organs ! He 
is never merry, but still modest; not dissolved into indecent 
laughter, or tickled with wit, scurrilous or injurious. He cun- 
ningly searcheth into the virtues of others, and liberally com- 
mends them ; but buries the vices of the imperfect in a cha- 



HABINGTON. 291 

ritable silence, whose manners he reforms, not by invectives, 
but example. In prayer he is frequent, not apparent ; yet as 
he labours not the opinion, so he fears not the scandal of being 
thought good. He every day travels his meditations up to 
Heaven, and never finds himself wearied with the journey ; 
but when the necessities of nature return him down to earth, 
he esteems it a place he is condemned to. * * * * To 
live he knows a benefit, and the contempt of it ingratitude, 
and therefore loves, but riot dotes on life. Death, how de- 
formed soever an aspect it wears, he is not frighted with, 
since it not annihilates but unclouds the soul. He, there- 
fore, stands every moment prepared to die ; and though he 
freely yields up himself when age or sickness summon him, 
yet he with more alacrity puts off his earth when the profes- 
sion of faith crowns him a martyr. 

Henry Vaughan was born in Wales, in 1621, and in 
his seventeenth year was entered of Jesus College, 
Oxford, from whence, after a residence of two years, he 
was removed by his father to one of the Inns of Court 
in London, where he studied the law, until the com- 
mencement of the civil war, when, we are told by- 
Anthony Wood, " he was taken home by his friends, 
and followed the pleasant paths of poetry and phi- 
lology." He afterwards applied himself to physic, and 
became an eminent practitioner in his native place. 
Thus his life glided harmlessly and beneficially away, 
at a distance from the miseries under which so many 
of his fellow -creatures were suffering. He lived in the 
neighbourhood of Brecknock -, and in^ the Olor Iscanas 
are frequent invitations to his friends to partake of his 
rustic pleasures. , He died, Wood thinks, on the 29th 
of April, 1695, and was buried in the parish-church of 
Llansenfried, about two miles from Brecknock. 

Vaughan' s poetry has never received the praise it 

v 2 



292 VAUGHAN. 

deserves. Mr. Campbell pronounces him one of the 
harshest of the inferior order of the school of conceit 5 
but to his sacred poems, a milder criticism is due : they 
show considerable originality and picturesque grace. 
He was an imitator of Herbert, of whom he makes 
affectionate mention, and whom he resembles in the negli- 
gence of his versification, and the inappropriateness of 
his imagery. But he occasionally swept the harp with 
a master's hand: what an affecting solemnity runs 
through these stanzas : — 

They are all gone into the world of light ! 

And I alone sit lingering here ; 
Their very memory is fair and bright, 

And my sad thoughts doth clear. 

It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast, 
Like stars upon some gloomy grove, 

Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest, 
After the sun's remove. 

I see them walking in an air of glory, 
Whose light doth trample on my days : 

My days, which are at best but dull and hoary, 
Mere glimmering and decays. 

O holy Hope ! and high Humility, 

High as the heavens above : 
These are your walks, and you have show'd them me 

To kindle my cold love. 

Dear beauteous Death ! the jewel of the just, 

Shining no where but in the dark ; 
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust, 

Could man outlook that mark ! 

He that hath found some fledg'd bird's nest, may know 

At first sight if the bird be tiown ; 
But what fair well, or grove, it sings in now, 

That is to him unknown. 



VAUGHAN. 293 

O, Father of eternal life, and all 

Created glories under thee ! 
Resume thy spirit from this world of thrall 

Into true liberty. 

Either disperse these mists which blot and fill 

My perspective as they pass, 
Or else remove me hence unto that Hill 

Where I shall need no glass. 

The image of the bird, in the 6th stanza, is very 
charming. The last verse is imitated from Herbert's 
poem on Grace. 

The Retreat. 
Ha:ppy those early days, when I 
Shined in my angel-infancy. 
Before I understood this place, 
Appointed for my second race, 
Or taught my soul to fancy ought 
But a white, celestial thought, — 
When yet I had not walk'd above 
A mile or two from my first love, 
And looking back (at that short space) 
Could see a glimpse of his bright face. 
When on some gilded cloud or flower 
My gazing soul would dwell an hour ; 
And in those weaker glories spy 
Some shadows of eternity. 

Oh, how I long to travel back, 
And tread again that ancient track ! 
That I might once more reach that plain, 
Where first I left my glorious train, 
From whence the enlightened spirit sees 
The shady City of Palm Trees. 

These lines will find an echo in many bosoms, for the 
same aspiration must have risen to the lips of every 
one. But we know that "the enlightened spirit" be- 



294 VAUGHAN. 

longs more to the maturity of age than to the in- 
experienced innocence of childhood ; and to the eye of 
the Christian pilgrim, in the most desolate path of his 
wanderings, "the shady City of Palm Trees" is visible, 
and the blackness of the remote horizon often glows 
with the orient light of the City of Paradise. 

The Wreath. 
Addressed to the Redeemer. 

Since I in storms most used to be, 

And seldom yielded flowers, 
How shall I get a wreath for Thee 

From these rude barren hours ? 

The softer dressings of the spring, 

Or summer s later store, 
I will not for Thy temples bring, 

Which thorns, not roses, wore ; 

But a twined wreath of grief and praise, 

Praise soil'd with tears, and tears again 
Shining with joy, like dewy days, 

This day I bring for all Thy pain, 
Thy causeless pain, and as sad death, 

Which sadness breathes in the most vain, 
O, not in vain ! now beg Thy breath, 

Thy quickening breath, which gladly bears 
Through saddest clouds to that glad place 

Where cloudless quires sing without tears, 
Sing Thy just praise and see Thy face ! 

A pretty verse on the burial of an infant should not 
be omitted: — 

Blest infant bud whose blossom-life, 

Did only look about and fall, 
Weary' d out with harmless strife 

Of milk and tears, the food of all. 



295 



RICHARD CRASHAW. 



After an anxious search in all the accessible sources 
of information, I am able to tell little of one of whom 
every lover of poetry must desire to know so much. 
The day of his birth and of his decease are involved in 
equal mystery. 

Crashaw was born in London. His father was an 
eminent Divine, and Preacher at the Temple. His works, 
however, brought him more fame than profit, and he 
confessed that he had spent his patrimony ih buying 
books, and his time in scribbling them. At the close 
of the reign of Elizabeth he had also been deprived of a 
" little vicarage*." But his learning and virtues procured 
for him the esteem of many learned and excellent men f, 
and particularly of Sir Randolph Crew, and Sir Henry 
Yelverton J, by whom his son Richard was placed on 

* A Discourse on Popishe Corruption Requiringe a Kingly Refor- 
mation; among the MS. Books in the Royal Library. See Casly's 
Catalogue. 

t He was intimate with Archbishop Usher, as an extract from a letter 
to that Prelate will show : — "I lent you Josseline de Vitis Archiep* 
Cant,, in folio, which you said you lent to Dr. Mocket, and I believe 
it ; yet I could never get it, and now I find my book at Mr. Edwards 
his shop, in Duke Lane, and he saith he bought it with Dr. Mocket's 
library, but I cannot have it. Happily you might, by your testimony, 
prevail to get it me, for I charged him not to sell it. I pray think 
of it as you go that way. Thus longing to see you, and till you send 
me word what day you will be here, I commend us unto God, and am, 
Yours in Christ, 

William Crashaw." 
Appendix to Parr's Life of Usher. 

$ Sir Henry Yelverton was appointed Solicitor-General soon after 
1613, and Attorney-General in 1616. In 1625, he was one of the Judges 
of the King's Bench, and subsequently of the Common Pleas. A curious 



296 RICHARD CRASHAW. 

the foundation of the Charter House School, where he 
highly distinguished himself under Brooks, a celebrated 
master of that day, whom he afterwards addressed in 
an epigram, full of attachment and respect. I had 
hoped, from a reference to the Registers of the School, 
to have determined the period of his admission, but 
they contain no entry before 1680. How long he con- 
tinued there is equally uncertain. He was elected a 
scholar of Pembroke Hall, March 26, 1632*, and yet 
we find him lamenting the premature death of his friend, 
William Herrys, a fellow of the same College, which 
happened in the October of 1631. Herrys had been 
originally entered of Christ's, and his relations were 
persons of property and consideration, in the county of 
Essex. Crashaw calls him the sweetest among men, 
and mourned his fate in five epitaphs, one of which 
was in Latin. 

In 1633 he took his Bachelor's Degree, and, in 1634, 
published anonymously, a volume of Epigrammata Sacra, 
inscribed to Benjamin Laney, the Master of Pembroke 
Hall. In the civil war, Laney was deprived of his situa- 
tion, and suffered much persecution and many hardships 
for his loyalty. 

The guides of the poet's youthful studies were always 
esteemed, and their memory preserved in his heart. Of 
Mr. Tournay, the tutor of Pembroke, he spoke in grate- 
ful language, as of one who merited his respect f. 

narrative, written by himself, " of what passed on his being restored to 
the King's favour, in 1609," is printed in the fifteenth volume of the 
Arch&ologia, p. 27. 

* From the College Register, quoted in Cole's MSS. 

t Tutori Summe Observando. — " We have had some doings here of late 
about one of Pembroke Hall, who preaching in St. Mary's, about the 
beginning of Lent, upon that text James ii, 22, seemed to avouch the 



RICHARD CRASHAW. 297 

In ] 635 he prefixed a copy of verses to Robert Shel- 
ford's Five Pious and Learned Discourses. Shelf or d was 
of Peterhouse, and Rector of Ringsfield, in Suffolk. 
Crashaw's recommendation of this work requires notice, 
for it was considered to advocate doctrines inimical to 
the established church. Archbishop Usher condemns 
it with indignation, in a letter to Dr. Ward, Sept. 15, 
1635. " But, while we strive here to maintain the 
purity of our ancient truth, how cometh it to pass that 
you at Cambridge do cast such stumbling-blocks in our 
way, by publishing into the world such rotten stuff as 
Shelford hath vented in his Five Discourses ; wherein 
he hath so carried himself ut famosi Perni amanuensem 
possis agnoscere. The Jesuits of England sent over the 
book hither to confirm our papists in their obstinacy, 
and to assure them that we are now coming home to 
them as fast as we can. I pray God this sin be not 
deeply laid to their charge, who give an occasion to our 
blind thus to stumble*." This fact enables us to trace 
the gradually growing inclination of Crashaw to the 
Roman Catholic faith. His mystical and enthusiastic 

insufficiency of faith to justification, and to impugn the doctrine of our 
11th article, of Justification by faith only; for which he was convented 
by the Yice-Chancellor, who was willing to accept of an easy acknow- 
ledgment : but the same party preaching his Latin sermon, pro Gradu, the 
last week, upon Rom. hi, 28, he said, he came not palinodiam canere, sed 
eandem cantiienam canere, which moved our Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Love, 
to call for his sermon, which he refused to deliver. Whereupon, upon 
Wednesday last, being Barnaby Day, the day appointed for the admis- 
sion of the Bachelors of Divinity, which must answer Die Comitiorum, 
he was stayed by the major part of the suffrages of the Doctors of the 
faculty. * * * The truth is, there are some Heads among us, that 
are great abettors of M. Tournay, the party above mentioned, who, 
no doubt, are backed by others."— Letter from Ward of Sidney Coll., 
June, 1634, to Archbishop Usher. Life by Parr, p. 470. 

* Master Shelford hath of late affirmed in print, that the Pope was 
never yet defined to be the Antichrist by any Synode.— Huntley's 
Breviate, third edition, 1637, p. 308. 



298 RICHARD CRASHAW. 

manner of life, indeed, powerfully predisposed him to 
lend a willing ear to the gorgeous deceptions of a poetical 
religion. Every day he passed several hours in the 
solitude of St. Mary's Church. " In the temple of God, 
under his wing, he led his life in St. Mary's Church, 
near St. Peter's College, under Tertullian's roof of 
angels 5 there he made his nest more gladly than 
David's swallow near the house of God 3 where, like a 
primitive saint, he offered more prayers in the night, 
than others usually offer in the day*." 

On the 20th of November, 1636, he removed to 
Peterhouse, of which he was made Fellow in 1637, and 
Master of Arts in the following year. Of his occupa- 
tions in these seasons of tranquility, the only fruits are 
to be found in his poems ; but his various acquire- 
ments prove him to have been something more than a 
dreamer. In 1641, Wood says that he took degrees 
at Oxford. He also entered into Holy Orders, and 
soon became a preacher of great energy and power. 
His richness of diction, and animation of style, were 
well calculated to render him an effective minister of 
the Gospel. 

Stormy days were swiftly coming on. In August, 
1 642, the University had testified its loyalty by sending 
the public plate to the King to coin into money; and 
Cromwell, then member of Parliament for the Town of 
Cambridge, is supposed to have succeeded in intercept- 
ing a portion of the treasure. An act of devotion to 
the royal cause was not likely to be forgotten. In 1 644, 
the University was converted into a garrison for the 
Parliament, principally under the superintendence of 

* Pref. to Steps to the Temple, 1646. 



RICHARD CRASHAW. 299 

Cromwell. "That his soldiers/' says Mr. Godwin, 
"were not debauched or licentious, is shown by the 
most indubitable testimony :" and he proceeds to con- 
firm his assertion in a strange manner, by admitting 
that they frequently displayed the fervour of their zeal, 
in the demolishing of images and painted windows. 
The hand of the spoiler was, of a truth, stretched out 
with impunity $ the beautiful grove of Jesus College was 
cut down, and the precious collection of coins taken 
away from St. John's. But the animosity of the 
Sectaries was not exhausted in these excesses. In the 
same year they prepared to introduce those changes 
into the system of the University, which their defenders 
affirm to have been demanded by the circumstances of 
the times. The direction of these alterations was in- 
trusted to the Earl of Manchester, whose courtly ele- 
gance and winning affability, have gained the applause 
of Clarendon. Crashaw was ejected from his fellow- 
ship on the 8th of April, 1644, and was succeeded by 
Howard Beecher. Joseph Beaumont, the author of 
Psyche, was banished on the same day. 

Whether he endured this unexpected calamity with 
patience and resignation, we are left to conjecture. 
Cambridge had been his abode for twelve years : his 
own College was full of old familiar faces, and every 
spot in its neighbourhood must have been endeared by 
delightful associations. He had, besides, been accus- 
tomed so long to indulge the romance of his imagina- 
tion, that the intelligence of his dismissal broke on him 
like a hasty awakening from a pleasant dream. How 
he supported himself after leaving Cambridge is not 
known 5 his friends were as poor and helpless as him- 
self. About this time he is considered by Carter to 



300 RICHARD CRASHAW. 

have seceded from the Protestant Church*. Carter, 
after mentioning his conversion, adds, that " though a 
person of exalted piety, yet he was a disgrace to the list." 
We must not be too harsh in our censure of his con- 
duct. The seed that took deep root in the poet's bosom, 
had also sprung up and flourished for a little while in 
the breasts of Jeremy Taylor and Chillingworth, who 
were both, for a short period, Catholics. In the Legenda 
Lignea Crashaw is termed an active ring-leader, and his 
motives are attacked with great virulence and malignity. 
" Master Crashaw (son to the London Divine), and 
sometimes Fellow of St. Peterhouse, in Cambridge, is 
another slip of the times that is transplanted into Rome. 
This peevish, silly seeker, glided away from his princi- 
ples in a poetical vein of fancy, and an impertinent 
curiosity 5 and finding that verses and measured flattery 
took and much pleased some female wits, Crashaw crept 
by degrees into favour and acquaintance with some 
court ladies * "*, and got first the estimation of an 
innocent, harmless convert $ and a purse being made by 
some deluded, vain-glorious ladies and their friends, 
the poet was despatched in a pilgrimage to Rome, where 
if he had found in the See Pope Urban the Eighth, 
instead of Pope Innocent, he might possibly have re- 
ceived a greater number and a better quantity of bene- 
dictions. But Innocent being more harsh and dry, the 
poor small poet, Crashaw, met with none of the genera- 
tion and kindred of Mecsenas, nor any great blessing 
from his Holiness, which misfortune puts the pitiful 
wire -drawer into a humour of admiring his own rap- 
tures 5 and in this fancy, like Narcissus, he is fallen in 
love with his own shadow, conversing with himself in 

* History of the University of Cambridge. 



RICHARD CRASHAW. 301 

verse, and admiring the birth of his own brains. He is 
only laughed at, or at most pitied, by his new patrons, 
who, conceiving him unworthy of any preferment in 
their Church, have given him leave to live like a lean 
swine, and almost ready to starve in poor mendicant 
quality*." 

One of the "Court ladies" particularly alluded to, 
was the Countess of Denbigh f in whose conversion to 
the Papal creed he appears to have been instrumental. 
But the charges of dishonesty and desire of gain, so 
vehemently urged against him, are unfounded ; what- 
ever his sentiments may have been, he was not drawn 
from the faith of his father by those " chords of gold 
and silver twist," which the writer of the Legenda says 
" fetched over so many." Crashaw did not remain long 
in England 5 he retired to France, where his sufferings 
w r ere very severe. 

An unknown and humble scholar could not hope to 
obtain, in a foreign land, the assistance denied him in 
his own. In 1646, Cowley, then Secretary to Lord 
Jermyn, found him in Paris, and in great poverty. 
Cowley had been his companion at Cambridge, and in 
this hour of affliction is said to have made him partaker 
of his slender fortunes. Crashaw's introduction to the 
Queen of Charles the First, has been usually attributed 
to the influence of Cowley ; but Dodd, the Catholic 
Church-historian, ascribes it to Dr. Gough and Mr. 
Car. Cowley's connexion with the fortunes of the 
King point him out as the most probable benefactor. 
From the Queen, Crashaw received letters of recom- 
mendation to Italy, where he became Secretary to a 

* Legenda Lignea, Lond. 1652, p. 169. 

t Among his poems is a letter to this Lady, against irresolution unci 
delay in matters of religion. 



302 RICHARD CRASHAW. 

Cardinal at Rome. Cole thinks that he was acting in 
this capacity in 1648, a surmise undoubtedly well 
founded, although the reference to Carier's Missive to 
James must be erroneous, since it was published more 
than thirty years before; and George Hakewill's learned 
reply to it appeared in 1616. 

Of Crashaw' s condition in Italy, a brief, but inter- 
esting account is given by Dr. John Bargrave, who had 
been his fellow- collegian at Peterhouse, and who was 
also driven from Cambridge by the warrant of the Earl 
of Manchester*. Upon his expulsion he went abroad, 
and Wood calls him a great traveller. 

" When I first went of my four times to Rome, there 
were three or four revolters to the Roman Church, that 
had been Fellows of Peterhouse, in Cambridge, with 
myself. The name of one of them was Mr. R. Crashaw, 
who was of the Seguita (as their term is), that is, an 
attendant, or one of the followers of Cardinal Palotta, 
for which he had a salary of crowns by the month (as 
the custom is), but no diet. Mr. Crashaw infinitely 
commended his Cardinal, but complained extremely of 
the wickedness of those of his retinue, of which he, 
having his Cardinal's ear, complained to him; upon 
which, the Italians fell so far out with him, that the 
Cardinal, to secure his life, was fain to put him from 
his service, and procuring him some small employ at 
the Lady's of Loretto, whither he went in pilgrimage in 
the summer-time, and, over-heating himself, died in a 
few weeks after he came thither $ and it was doubtful 
whether he was not poisoned f." 

In the margin of the folio edition of Cowley's Works, 

* Cole's MSS„ vol. 42, p. 114, 115, 125, 126, 127. 
t The MS. from which the above extract is taken is printed in Todd's 
Works of Milton. 



RICHARD CRASHAW. 303 

he is said to have died of a fever at Loretto, but the 
time is not mentioned. He was certainly dead before 
1652, for in that year his Carmen Deo Nostro, Te Decet 
Hymnus, &c., were published at Paris, by his friend, 
Thomas Car, to whom the poet's manuscripts appear to 
have been bequeathed ; for he says, — 

Twas his intent 

That what his riches pennd, poor Car should print. 

His fate was wept by Cowley in a strain of noble 
tenderness and enthusiasm. 

Poet and Saint ! To thee alone are given 

The two most sacred names of earth and heaven, 

The hard and rarest union which can be *, 

Next that of Godhead with humanity. 

Long did the Muses banish* d slaves abide, 

And built their pyramids to human pride ; 

Like Moses, thou, though spells and charms withstand, 

Hast brought them nobly back to their Holy Land. 

Hail, Bard triumphant, and some care bestow 

On us, the poets militant below, 

Oppos'd by our old enemy, adverse chance, 

Attack' d by envy and by ignorance. 

Thou, from low earth in nobler flames didst rise, 

And like Elijah mount alive the skies. 

The few further particulars it is in my power to 
communicate respecting his manners and acquirements, 
are chiefly collected from the brief notices of him by 
Car, who boasts that " sweet Crashaw was his friend, 
he Crashaw' s brother." He was well versed in the 
Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Spanish, and Italian lan- 
guages, the two last of which he mastered almost by 

* Folio edition, 1669. This line cannot surely be correct. Might not 
Cowley have written 

The hardest, rarest, union which can be 1 



304 RICHARD CRASHAW. 

his own unaided efforts. The poets of Greece and Rome 
were his favourite study, and he quoted from them 
by memory, with singular readiness and exactness. His 
accomplishments were on a par with his learning; he 
was skilled in music, drawing, engraving, and painting; 
and we learn from some verses, that he employed his 
talents for the amusement of his friends. The Sacred 
Poems printed at Paris in 1652, are adorned by some 
vignettes, " first made with his own hand," and engraved, 
in one or two instances, with great spirit, The designs, 
indeed, like the poetry, are characteristic of the author. 
The picture illustrating the verses to the Countess of 
Denbigh, "persuading her to resolution in religion," 
represents a heart fastened by a heavy padlock; and 
the sorrow of Mary Magdalen is portrayed by a heart 
distilling drops of blood. 

In his habits he was temperate, even to severity, 
taking no thought of the luxuries, scarcely of the 
necessaries of life. He lived, says his affectionate 
eulogist, 

Above in the air, 
A very bird of Paradise — no care 
Had he of earthly trash ; what might suffice 
To fit his soul for heavenly exercise, 

Sufficed him 

What he might eat or wear he took no thought, 
His needful food he rather found than sought*. 

r It has been supposed, from a passage in Selden's 
Table Talk, that he once entertained an intention of 
writing against the stage; but it is clear, from an 
Epigram upon two of Ford's tragedies, that he was at 
one period a student, if not an admirer, of the drama. 

* Car's Prefatory verses to the Carmen Deo Nostro. 



RICHARD CRASHAW. 305 

His secession from our Church is to be deeply de- 
plored ; but we have the zealous testimony of Cowley 
that the virtues of his after-life did not discredit the 
Mother whom he had forsaken. 

i Crashaw's poetical character has been drawn at con- 
siderable length, and with great ingenuity, by Pope, in 
a letter to his friend, Henry Cromwell*. 

" It seems that my late mention of Crashaw, and my 
quotation from him, has moved your curiosity. I, 
therefore, send you the whole author, who has held a 
place among my other books of this nature for some 
years ; in which time, having read him twice or thrice, 
I find him one of those whose works may just deserve 
reading. I take this poet to have writ like a gentleman, 
that is at leisure hours, and more to keep out of idle- 
ness than to establish a reputation 5 so that nothing 
regular or just can be expected from him. All that 
regards design, form, fable (which is the soul of poetry), 
all that concerns exactness or consent of parts (which is 
the body), will probably be wanting ; only pretty con- 
ceptions, fine metaphors, glittering expressions, and 
something of a neat cast of verse (which are properly 
the dress, gems, or loose ornaments of poetry), may be 
found in these verses. This is, indeed, the case of most 
other poetical writers of Miscellanies ; nor can it well 
be otherwise, since no man can be a true poet, who 
writes for diversion only. These authors should be 
considered as versifiers and witty men rather than as 
poets ; and under this head will only fall the Thoughts, 
the Expression, and the Numbers. These are only the 
pleasing parts of poetry, which may be judged of at a 
view, and comprehended all at once 5 and (to express 

* T.iterary Correspondence, vol. i., p. 302; 1735. 

X 



306 RICHARD CRASHAW. 

myself like a painter) their colouring entertains the 
sight, but the lines and life of the picture are not to be 
inspected too narrowly. 

" This author formed himself upon Petrarch, or rather 
upon Marino. His thoughts, one may observe, in the 
main, are pretty, but oftentimes far-fetched, and too 
often strained and stiffened, to make them appear the 
greater. For men are never so apt to think a thing 
great, as when it is odd or wonderful -, and inconsiderate 
authors would rather be admired than understood. 
This ambition of surprising a reader is the true natural 
cause of all Fustian, or Bombast, in Poetry. To confirm 
what I have said, you need but look into his first poem 
of the Weeper, where the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 14th, 21st 
stanzas are as sublimely dull as the 7th, 8th, 9th, 16th, 
1 7th, 20th, and 23rd stanzas of the same copy, are soft 
and pleasing. And if these last want any thing, it is 
an easier and more unaffected expression. The remain- 
ing thoughts in that poem might have been spared, being 
either but repetitions or very trivial and mean. And by 
this example, one may guess at all the rest to be like 
this -, a mixture of tender, gentle thoughts, and suitable 
expressions, of forced and inextricable conceits, and of 
needless fillers up to the rest. From all which, it is 
plain this author writ fast, and set down what came 
uppermost. A reader may skim off the froth, and use 
the clear underneath • but if he goes too deep, will meet 
with a mouthful of dregs : either the top or bottom of 
him are good for little, but what he did, in his own 
natural middle-way, is best. 

" To speak of his numbers is a little difficult, they 
are so various and irregular, and mostly Pindarick : 
'tis evident his heroic verse (the best example of which 



RICHARD CRASHAW. 307 

is his Musics Duel) is carelessly made up ; but one may 
imagine, from what it now is, that had he taken more 
care, it had been musical and pleasing enough ; not 
extremely majestic, but sweet. And the time considered, 
of his writing, he was (even as incorrect as he is) none 
of the worst versificators. 

" I will just observe that the best pieces of this author 
are a paraphrase of Psalm xxiii., on Lessius, Epitaph 
on M. Ashton, Wishes to his Supposed Mistress, and 
the Dies Irce." 

This criticism, while it is generally fair to the letter 
of Crashaw's poetry, is unjust to its spirit, and must 
have been written in forgetfulness of his peculiar tem- 
perament and disposition. Whatever he did was done 
with all his might, and no person who recollects that 
the Steps to the Temple were composed during moments 
of devotional ardour in St. Mary's Church, will con- 
sider him to have writ like a gentleman, and at leisure 
hours, to keep out idleness. The praise throughout the 
letter is cold and languid. Such phrases as "a neat 
cast of verse," and "none of the worst versificators," 
are not surely applicable to the translator of the Sospetto 
d'Herode, and the Prolusion of Strada. I am far from 
insinuating against Pope any intentional depreciation of 
the genius of Crashaw (the malevolent attacks of 
Philips have been satisfactorily repelled by Hayley) - 
but it may be doubted whether his tastes and pre- 
judices did not unfit him to deliver an impartial judg- 
ment on the merits of Crashaw. His own imagination 
was always in subjection to his taste, flowing in a 
bold and glittering stream, yet rarely, except in the 
Epistle to Abelard, overleaping the channel through 

x 2 



308 RICHARD CRASHAW. 

which he directed its course. Thus even his passion 
was polished, and terror itself assumed an elegance 
under his pencil. "From the dregs of Crashaw, of 
Carew, of Herbert, and others (for it is well known 
he was a great reader of these poets)/' remarks Warton, 
" Pope has very judiciously collected gold." In these 
searches after hidden treasure, the magnificent frag- 
ment from Marino could not have escaped his 
notice -, and it is odd that he omitted to specify it 
among the "best pieces" of the author. The Suspicion 
of Herod has always been estimated as a mere transla- 
tion; but it may not be uninteresting to show that 
many parts of it are enriched by the fancy of Crashaw. 
This can be easily done by accompanying the English 
version with the parallel passages in Italian. 

He saw heaven blossom with a new-born light, 
On which, as on a glorious stranger, gazed 
The golden eyes of night. 

Vede dal ciel con peregrino raggio 
Spiccarsi ancor miracolosa stella, 
Che verso Bettelem dritto il viaggio 
Segnando va folgoreggiante, e bella. 

He saw how in that blest day-bearing night • 
The heaven-rebuked shades made haste away, 
How bright a dawn of angels with new light 
Amazed the midnight world, and made a day 
Of which the morning knew not. 

Vede della felice santa notte 
Le tacit' ombre, i tenebrosi orrori, 
Dalle voci del ciel percosse, e rotte, 
E vinti dagli angelici splendori. 

And when Alecto, the most terrible of the infernal 
sisters, ascends to earth at the command of Satan-. — 



RICHARD CRASHAW. 309 

Heaven saw her rise, and saw Hell in the sight, 
The field's fair eyes saw her, and saw no more. 
But shut their flowery lids for ever. 

Parvero i fiori intorno, e la verdura 
Sentir forza di peste, ira di verno. 

The soliloquy of Satan, though wonderfully close, has 
an air of original inspiration. It reads like a copy 
by Milton: — 

While new thoughts boiled in his enraged breast, 

His gloomy bosom's darkest character 

Was in his shady forehead seen exprest. 

The forehead's shade in griefs expression there, 

Is what in sign of joy among the blest 

The face's lightening, or a smile, is here. 

Those stings of care that his strong heart opprest, 
A desperate "Oh, me !" drew from his deep breast. 

Oh me ! (thus bellowed he) oh me ! what great 
Portents before mine eyes their powers advance ? 
And serves my purer sight only to beat 
Down my proud thought, and leave it in a trance ? 
Frown I ; and can Great Nature keep her seat ? 
And the gay stars lead on their golden dance ? 
Can his attempts above still prosp'rous be, 
Auspicious still, in spite of Hell and me ? 

He has my heaven (what would he more ?) whose bright 
And radiant sceptre this bold hand should bear, 
And for the never-fading fields of light*, 
My fair inheritance, he confines me here, 
To this dark house of shades, horror, and night, 
To draw a long-lived death, where all my cheer 
Is the solemnity my sorrow wears, 
That mankind's torment waits upon my tears. 

* Che piu pud farmi omai chi la celeste 
Reggia mi tolse, e i regni i miei lucenti? 



310 RICHARD CRASHAW. 

Dark dusky man he needs must single forth, 
To make the partner of his own pure ray ; 
And should we powers of Heaven, spirits of worth, 
Bow our bright heads before a king of clay*, 
It shall not be, said I, and clomb the north, 
Where never wing of angel yet made way — 

What though I missed my blow ! yet I strook high, 

And to dare something is some victory. 

Art thou not Lucifer ? he to whom the droves 

Of stars that gild the morn in charge were given ? 

The nimblest of the lightning-winged loves ? 

The fairest and the first-born smile of Heaven ? 

Look in what pomp the mistress-planet moves, 

Rev'rently circled by the lesser seven ! 

Such, and so rich, the flames that from thine eyes 
Opprest the common people of the skies. 

How grandly wrought up is the apostrophe to the 
fallen Spirit! 

Disdainful wretch! how hath one bold sin cost 
Thee all the beauties of thy once bright eyes ! 
How hath one black eclipse cancelVd and crost 
The glories that did gild thee on thy rise ! 
Proud morning of a perverse day ! how lost 
Art thou unto thyself, thou too self-wise 
Narcissus ! foolish Phaeton ! who for all 
Thy high-aim 1 d hopes, gain dst but a flaming fall, 

Misero, e come il tuo splendor primiero 
Perdesti, o gia di luce Angel piu bello ! 
Eterno avrai dal punitor severo 
All' ingiusto fallir giusto flagello ; 
De' fregi tuoi vagheggiatore altero, 
Dell' altrui seggio usurpator rubello 
Trasformato, e caduto in Flegetonte ! 
Orgoglioso Narciso ! empio Fetonte ! 

* Voile alle forme sue semplici, e prime 
Natura sovralzar corporea, e bassa, 
E de' membri del ciel capo sublime 
Far di limo terrestre eterna massa. 



RICHARD CRASHAW. 311 

The fine trait in the countenance of the Destroyer, 
which Milton has borrowed, belongs to Crashaw : 

From Death's sad shades to the life-breathing air, 
This mortal enemy to mankind's good 
Lifts his malignant eyes, wasted with care, 
To become beautiful in human blood. 

Queste dall' ombre morte alF aria viva 
Invido pur di nostro stato umano, 
Se luce ove per dritto in giu si apriva 
Cavernoso spiraglia, alzo lontano. 

A few detached lines may be added. Sleep is said 
to tame 

The rebellious eye 

Of sorrow. 

The eyes of Satan which are 

■*■ — The sullen dens of death and night, 
Startle the dull air with a dismal red*. 

The Erinnys which came to Herod, resembles her 
who was present at "Thebes' dire feast:" 

Her sulphur-breathing torches brandishing f . 
The sun is seen by the Tempter to 

Make proud the ruby Portals of the East%. 

The author of La Strage degV Innocenti was Giam- 
battista Marino, upon whose style Crashaw formed his 
own, and who is, therefore, entitled to a brief notice 
in -this place. His Rime Amorose, Sacre e Varie came out 

* Negii occbi, ove mestizia alberga e morte, 
Luce fiammeggia torbida e vermiglia. 

f E qual gia con facelle em pie e funeste 
Di Tebe apparve alle sanguigne cene. 

% La Reggia Oriental. So, also, in the Hymn for the Epiphany: 

Aurora shall set ope 

Her ruby casements. 



312 RICHARD CRASHAW. 

in 1602, and quickly diffused his fame, which subse- 
quent works contributed to increase. His death, in 
1625, removed him in the flower of his days. He 
was buried with the honours of a prince ; all the nobles 
of the land attended his funeral, bearing torches in 
their hands, and his coffin was covered with crowns of 
laurel*. Men of genius emulated each other in exalting 
his memory, and Italy bewailed her Homer, the delight 
of poesy, and the glory of the Muses. Such are the 
terms in which his biographer, Loredano, mentions Ms 
talents : but a reaction of opinion has now taken place, 
and he, whose compositions were to be co-existent with 
the world, has been called by Tiraboschi, the chief cor- 
rupter of Italian taste. Marino has experienced a 
fate by no means uncommon, that of being eulogized 
and calumniated with equal extravagance and impro- 
priety. His powers have been measured by his lighter 
Rime, while his sacred poetry has been left almost en- 
tirely unexplored. But we had nothing before Milton 
upon a religious theme, to oppose to the Slaughter of the 
Innocents. What might not the author of that sublime 
production have accomplished, if the nerves of his fancy 
had not been relaxed by dalliance with a more earthly 
Muse, and if he had consecrated the morning of his 
life to Him from whom all poetry descends! In his 
closing hours he lamented the profanation of his genius, 
and directed all his amatory verses to be burnt in his 
presence. But the dragon's teeth were sown, and if 
they have not sprung up to a deadly harvest, we owe 
no gratitude to the sower. 

* Tutti i Titolati e tutti i principi 1' accompagnarono con dopieri 
accesi nelle mane : la bara era coperto di veluto nero con gli adorna- 
menti cavallereschi e con le corone d' alloro. — Vita del Marino, da G. 
F. Loredano, 



RICHARD CRASHAW. 313 

The translation of the Dies Ir& is spoken of by Pope, 
as one of the most excellent of Crashaw's compositions. 
Warton coldly observes, that he has " very well translated 
the Dies Irce *, to which translation Roscommon is much 
indebted, in his poem on the Day of Judgment." And 
Dr. Johnson says, speaking of Roscommon, that the 
best line is taken from Dryden, not remembering that 
the entire poem shines with a light borrowed from 
Crashaw. The genius of the noble author was more 
adapted to write verses "on a Lap-dog," than to para- 
phrase the Psalms $ and yet, in the Lives of the Poets, 
how highly exalted he is above him whom he imitated ! 
With how much generosity are this trirler's benefac- 
tions to English literature acknowledged, while a man 
of a truly poetic mind is passed over in silence. But 
to style Crashaw's Hymn a translation at all, is an 
untruth ; unless a picture, wrought into life by force 
of colouring and expression, can be considered a copy 
of a feeble and inanimate outline. A few verses of the 
original are subjoined in a note, that the reader may 
compare them with the supposed version f. 

* Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope. 

t Dies Irae, dies ilia, 

Cruris expandens vexilla, 
Solyet Saeclum in favilla ! 

Quantus tremor est futurus, 
Quando Judex est venturus, 
Cuncta stricte discussurus ! 

Tuba minim spargens sonum, 
Per sepulcra regionum 
Coget omnes ante thronum. 

Mors stupebit, et natura, 
Cum resurget creatura 
Judicanti responsura. 

Liber scriptus proferetur, 
In quo totum continetur, 
Unde mundus judicetur. 



314 RICHARD CRASHAW. 

THE HYMN. 

DIES IRiE, DIES ILLA. 

In Meditation of the Day of Judgment, 

Hear' st thou, my soul, what serious things 
Both the Psalm and Sybil sings, 
Of a sure Judge, from whose sharp ray 
The world in flames shall pass away ? 

O that fire ! before whose face 
Heavn and earth shall find no place : 
O those eyes, whose angry light 
Must be the day of that dread night ! 
O that trump ! whose blast shall run 
An even round with the circling sun, 
And urge the murrnring graves to bring, 
Pale mankind forth to meet his King. 

Horror of nature, Hell and Death ! 
When a deep groan from beneath 
Shall cry, " We come, we come," and all 

The caves of night answer one call. 

# # # # 

O, when Thy last frown shall proclaim 
The flocks of goats to folds of flame, 
And all Thy lost sheep found shall be, 
Let "Come ye blessed" then call me. 

When the dread 'Ite' shall divide 
Those limbs of death from Thy left side, 
Let those life-speaking lips command 
That I inherit Thy right hand. 

O hear a suppliant heart, all crush 1 d 
And crumbled into contrite dust : 
My Hope, my Fear, my Judge, my Friend — 
Take charge of me, and of my end. 

The last two lines, slightly altered, were pronounced 
by Roscommon in the moment of death, with great 
energy and devotion. 



RICHARD CRASHAW. 315 

The exquisite pathos of the 137th Psalm, has been 
moulded into numerous forms, some of them very 
beautiful ; and Crashaw's attempt is not the least suc- 
cessful, lie touched the harp of sorrow with a 
brotherly feeling : — 

On the proud banks of great Euphrates 1 flood, 

There we sate, and there we wept : 
Our harps that now no music understood, 
Nodding on the willows, slept, 
While unhappy, captiv'd we, 
Lovely Sion, thought on thee. 

They, they that snatcht us from our country's breast 

Would have a song carv'd to their ears, . 
In Hebrew numbers, then (O cruel jest !) 
When harps and hearts were drown'd in tears : 
" Come," they cry'd, " come, sing and play 
One of Sion's songs to day." 

Sing ! Play ! To whom (ah) shall we sing or play 

If not, Jerusalem, to thee ? 
Ah, thee Jerusalem ! Ah, sooner may 
This hand forget the mastery 

Of Musick's dainty touch, than I 
The music of thy memory. 

Which when I lose, O may at once my tongue 

Lose this same busy speaking art, 
Unparch'd, her vocal arteries unstrung, 
No more acquainted with my heart, 
On my dry palate's roof to rest, 
A wither d leaf, an idle guest. 

The observations I have ventured to make upon the 
version from Marino, apply with greater force to Musics 
Duell. " Crashaw's Musical Duel," says Lauder, " the 
best poem in the collection, is translated from Strada, 
the Jesuit, without the least distant hint that it was 



316 RICHARD CRASHAW. 

so*." The want of any acknowledgement to Strada 
may be explained by the author's absence in a foreign 
land, and the publication of the poems by a friend. But 
as this poem must be deemed one of the most remark- 
able in the language, for its felicity of diction and 
pictorial effect, it will be worth while to inquire the 
precise obligations of Crashaw to the Jesuit. Strada' s 
versatility of talent has extorted praise from Tiraboschi, 
but as a poet he failed, from having no manner of his 
own. Of his imitations, that of Claudian is the most 
happy : — 

Now westward Sol had spent the richest beams 
Of noon's high glory, when hard by the streams 
Of Tiber, on the scene of a green plat, 
Under protection of an oak, there sat 
A sweet lute's master, in whose gentle airs, 
He lost the day's heats, and his own hot cares. 

Close in the covert of the leaves there stood 

A nightingale, come from the neighbouring wood : 

The sweet inhabitant of each glad tree, 

Their muse, their siren,— harmless siren she ! 

There stood she listening, and did entertain 

The music's soft report, and mould the same 

In her own murmurs, that whatever mood 

His curious fingers lent, her voice made good — 

The man perceives his rival. 

Awakes his lute, and 'gainst the fight to come 

Informs it in a sweet preludium 

Of closer strains, and, ere the war begin, 

He lightly skirmishes on every string, 

Charged with a flying touch, and straightway she 

Carves out her dainty voice as readily — 

His nimble hands instinct, then taught each string 

A cap ring cheerfulness, and made them sing 

* Essay on Milton's Use of the Moderns, 1750, p. 160. 



RICHARD CRASHAW. 31/ 

To their own dance ; now negligently rash 

He throws his arm, and with a long-drawn dash 

Blends all together, then distinctly trips 

From this to that, then quick returning skips 

And snatches this again, and pauses there ; 

She measures every measure, every where 

Meets art with art ; sometimes, as if in doubt, 

Not*perfect yet, and fearing to be out, 

Trails her plain ditty in one low-spun note, 

Through the sleek passage of her open throat : 

A clear unwrinJcled song ; then does she point it 

With tender accents, and severely joint it 

By short diminutives, that being rear'd 

In controverting warbles evenly shar'd, 

With her sweet self she wrangles. He amazed 

That from so small a channel should be raised 

The torrent of a voice, whose melody 

Could melt into such sweet variety, 

Strains higher yet, that tickled with rare art 

The tattling strings (each breathing in his part) 

Most kindly do fall out ; the grumbling base 

In surly groans disdains the treble's grace ; 

The high- perched treble chirps at this, and chides, 

Until his finger (moderator) hides 

And closes the sweet quarrel, rousing all, 

Hoarse, shrill at once; as when the trumpets call 

Hot Mars to the harvest of Death's field, and woo 

Men's hearts into their hands. This lesson, too, 

She gives him back ; her supple breast thrills out 

Sharp airs, and staggers in a warbling doubt 

Of dallying sweetness, hovers o'er her skill, 

And folds, in waved notes 9 with a trembling bill, 

The pliant series of her slippery song ; 

Then starts she suddenly into a throng 

Of short thick sobs, whose thund'ring volleys float, 

And roll themselves over her lubric throat 

In panting murmurs 



318 RICHARD CRASHAW. 

She opes the flood-gate, and lets loose a tide 
Of streaming sweetness, which in state doth ride 
On the wav'd back of every swelling strain. 
Rising and falling in a pompous train ; 
And while she thus discharges a shrill peal 
Of flashing airs, she qualifies their zeal 
With the cool epode of a graver note, 
Thus high, thus low, as if her silver throat 

Would reach the brazen voice of war's hoarse bird - 

* * # 

Shame now and anger mixed a double stain 

In the musician's face 

His hands sprightly as fire he flings, 

And with a quavering coyness tastes the strings : 
The sweet-lipped sisters musically frighted, 
Singing their fears, are fearfully delighted ; 
Trembling as when Apollo's golden hairs 
Are fann d and frizzled in the wanton airs 
Of his own breath, which married to his lyre. 
Doth tune the spheres and make heavens self look higher. 
From this to that, from that to this he flies, 
Feels Music's pulse in all her arteries, 
Caught in a net which there Apollo spreads, 
His fingers struggle with the vocal threads. 
Following these little rills, he sinks into 
A sea of Helicon ; his hand does go 
Those parts of sweetness which with nectar drop, 
Softer than that which pants in Hebe's cup. 
The humorous strings expound his learned touch 
By various glosses ; now they seem to grutch, 
And murmur in a buzzing din, then gingle 
In shrill-tongued accents, striving to be single : 
Every smooth turn, every delicious stroke 
Gives life to some new grace ; thus doth he invoke 
Sweetness by all her names ; thus, bravely thus 
(Fraught with a fury so harmonious), 
The lute's light genius now does proudly rise, 
Heav'd on the surges ofswolVn rhapsodies. 



RICHARD CRASHAW. 319 

Whose flourish (meteor-like) doth curl the air 
With flash of high-horn fancies, here and there 
Dancing in lofty measures, and anon 
Creeps on the soft touch of a tender tone. 

Jam Sol a medio pronus deflexerat orbe 

Mitius, e radiis vibrans crinalibus ignem, 

Cum Fidicen, propter Tiberina fluenta, sonanti 

Lenibat plectra curas, sestumque levabat, 

Ilice defensus nigra scenaque virenti. 

Audiit hunc hospes silvse Philomela propinquse 

Musa loci, nemoris siren, — innoxia siren ; 

Et prope succedens stetit abdita frondibus, alte 

Accipiens sonitum, secumque remurmurat, et quos 

Ille modos variat digitis, hsec gutture reddit. 

Sensit se Fidicen Philomela imitante referri, 

Et placuit ludum volucri dare ; plenius ergo 

Explorat citharam, tentamentumque futurse 

Praebeat ut pugnse, percussit protinus omnes 

Impulsu pernice fides — nee segnius ilia. 

Mille per excurrens varise discrimina vocis, 

Venturi specimen prsefert argutula cantus. 

Tunc Fidicen per fila movens trepidantia dextram, 

Nunc contemnenti similis diverberat ungue, 

Depectitque pari chordas, et simplice ductu : 

Nunc carptim replicat, digitisque micantibus urget 

Fila minutatim, celerique repercutit ictu. 

Mox silet. Ilia modis totidem respondet, et artem 

Arte refert. Nunc seu rudis, aut incerta canendi 

Projicit in longum, nulloque plicatile flexu 

Carmen init, simili serie, jugique tenore, 

Prsebet iter liquidum labenti e pectore voce ; 

Nunc csesim variat, modulisque canora minutis. 

Delibrat vocem, tremuloque reciprocat ore. 

Miratur Fidicen parvis e faucibus ire 

Tarn varium, tarn dulce melos ; majoraque tentans 

Alternat mira arte fides ; dum torquet acutas 

Inciditque, graves operoso verbere pulsat, 

Permiscetque simul certantia rauca sonoris, 



320 RICHARD CRASHAW. 

Ceu resides in bella viros clangore lacessat. 
Hoc etiam Philomela canit : dumque ore liquenti 
Vibrat acuta sonum, moduli sque interplicat sequis ; 
Ex inopinato gravis intonat, et leve murmur 
Turbinat introrsus, alternantique sonore 
Clarat, et infuscat ceu martia classica pulset. 

Scilicet erubuit Fidicen, — ■ 

Non imitabilibus plectrum concentibus urget. 
Namque manu per fila volat, simul hos, simul illos 
Explorat numeros, chordaque laborat in omni, 
Et strepit, et tinnit, crescitque superbius, et se 
Multiplicat religens, plenoque choreumate plaudit. 

This extract will be sufficient. It is idle to seek in 
the Latin text for the vigour, the fancy, and the gran- 
deur of these lines. These remain with Crashaw, of 
whose obligations to Strada we may say, as Hayley 
remarked of Pope's debt to Crashaw, that if he bor- 
rowed any thing from him in this article, it was only as 
the sun borrows from the earth, when drawing from 
thence a mere vapour, he makes it the delight of every 
eye, by giving it all the tender and gorgeous colouring of 
heaven. 

Crashaw is one of a class of poets who have obtained 
the appellation of the metaphysical school, though for 
what reason it is difficult to determine. It was, I 
believe, first bestowed on ^them by Dryden, who desired 
to characterize by the epithet a style directly opposed to 
the freedom of his own. Petrarch and Marino were 
the founders of this sect, which in the reigns of James 
and Charles the First, boasted some of the most illus- 
trious names. The poetry of Crashaw offers an ad- 
mirable exemplification of this corrupt system. Writing 
in his native tongue, his manner is evidently foreign. 
He is not descriptive, but picturesque; we look in 



RICHARD CRASHAW. 321 

vain for images of rural simplicity, and touches of 
domestic feeling. He contemplates nature, as it were, 
through a painted window, from which every object 
takes its particular hue. Thus the rose he describes is 
not the rose of our gardens, or our hedges 3 his flowers 
have never cheered our eyes in the field-paths 3 they 
are natives of a land visited only by the poet's ima- 
gination. He fails in arousing our sympathy, because 
he addresses our memory instead of our heart. We 
have also to object to these writers the want of symmetry 
in their compositions 3 their richest colouring often 
darkens into a daub 3 their choicest music closes in 
discord. When reading them we think of the Centaur 
of Zeuxis, which began in loveliness and ended in 
deformity. 

The faults of Crashaw are those of his school 3 and 
it has been truly said *, that the strength of his thoughts 
sometimes appears in their distortion. When released 
from his self-imposed fetters, he uttered his lays with 
a softness, that like the melody of the nightingale he 
sang, seems to come from a silver throat. How full 
of pastoral sweetness is the " Hymn of the Nativity, 
sung as by the shepherds !" 

Gloomy night embraced the place 

Where the noble Infant lay ; 
The Babe lookd up and show'd his face — 

In spite of darkness it was day. 

We saw thee in thy balmy nest, 

Bright dawn of our eternal day ! 
We saw thine eyes break from their east, 

And chase the trembling shades away : 
We saw thee, and we blest the sight, 
We saw thee by thy own sweet light. 

* By Mr. Campbell. 

Y 



322 RICHARD CRASHAW. 

She sings thy tears asleep, and dips 

Her kisses in thy weeping eye ; 
She spreads the red leaves of thy lips, 

That in their buds yet blushing lie. 

Yet when young April's husband-showers 

Shall bless the fruitful Maia's bed, 
We'll bring the first-born of her flowers 

To kiss thy feet and crown thy head. 
To thee dread Lamb ! whose love must keep 
The shepherds more than they their sheep. 

To Thee, meek Majesty ! soft King 

Of simple graces and sweet loves ; 
Each of us his lamb will bring, 

Each his pair of silver doves *. 

And what a bright vein of imagination runs through 
his Hymn to the Morning: — 

O Thou 

Bright Lady of the morn ! pity doth lie 
So warm in thy soft breast, it cannot die — 
Have mercy then, and when he next shall rise 
O meet the angry God, invade his eyes. 

So my wakeful lay shall knock 

At th' oriental gates, and duly mock 

The early lark's shrill orisons, to be 

An anthem at the day's nativity. 

And the same rosy-fingered hand of thine, 

That shuts night's dying eyes, shall open mine; 

But thou faint God of sleep, forget that I 

Was ever known to be thy votary. 

No more my pillow shall thine altar be, 

Nor will I offer any more to thee, 

Myself a melting sacrifice : I'm born 

Again a fresh child of the buxom morn, 

Heir of the Sun's first beams, why threat'st thou so ? 

Why dost thou shake thy leaden sceptre ? Go 

* Several lines are omitted. 



RICHARD CRASHAW. 323 

Bestow thy poppy upon wakeful woe, 
Sickness and sorrow, whose pale lids ne'er know 
Thy downy finger ; dwell upon their eyes, 
Shut in their tears, shut out their miseries ! 

I have already extracted largely from Crashaw's 
poetry, or it would be easy to multiply instances of 
new and pleasing similes, and metaphors most inge- 
niously constructed. He was not always the stringer 
of pretty beads. His character of true poetic genius 
contrasted with his own, is very noble : — 
No rapture makes it live 



Drest in the glorious madness of a muse, 
Whose feet can walk the milky way, 
Her starry throne, and hold up an exalted arm 
To lift me from my lazy urn, and climb 
Upon the stooped shoulders of old time, 
And trace eternity. 

Between his Latin and English poems there is very 
little difference. In the versification he appears to have 
imitated the epigrammatic turns of Martial : — 

In S. Columbam ad Christi Caput sedentem. 
Cui sacra siderea volucris suspenditur ala ? 

Hunc nive plus niveum cui dabit ilia pedem? 
Christe, tuo capiti totis se destinat auris, 

Qua ludit densse blandior umbra comae — 
Illic arcano quid non tibi murmure narrat ? 

(Murmure mortales non imitante sonos — ) 
Sola avis hsec nido hoc non est indigna cubare ; 

Solus nidus hie est hac bene dignus ave. 

To the Sacred Dove alighting on the Head of Christ*. 
On whom doth this blest bird its wings outspread ? 

Where will it suffer its white feet to rest ? 
O Jesus, hovering o'er thy hallowed head, 

Within thy hairs sweet shade, it seeks a nest . 

* In these translations I have endeavoured to be as literal as possible. 

' Y 2 



324 RICHARD CRASHAW. 

There does it breathe a mystic song to Thee, 

A melody unlike all earthly sound ; 
That bird alone to this pure nest may flee, 

This nest alone worthy the bud is found. 

In Ccetum omnium Sanctorum. 
Felices animse ! quas coelo debita virtus 

Jam potuit vestris inseruisse polis. 
Hoc dedit egregii non parcus sanguinis usus, 

Spesque per obstantes expatiata vias. 
O ver ! O longse semper seges aurea lucis, 

Nocte nee alterna, dimidiata dies — 
O quse palma manu ridet ! quae fronte corona ! 

O nix virginese non temeranda togse ! 
Pacis inocciduse vos illic ora videtis : 

Vos Agni dulcis lumina : vos — quid ago? 

To the Assembly of all the Saints. 
Thrice happy souls, to whom the prize is given, 
Whom faith and truth have lifted into heaven, — 
Gift of the heavenly Martyrs dying breath, 
Gift of a Faith that burst the Gates of Death ! 
O Spring ! O golden harvest of glad light, 
Sweet day, whose beauty never fades in night ! 
The palm blooms in each hand, the garland on each brow, 
The raiment glitters in its undimm'd snow ! 
The regions of unfading Peace ye see, 
And the meek brightness of the Lamb — how different 

from me ! 

The name of Cowley is associated with the history of 
Crashaw ; he spoke of himself as one whom Crashaw 
was " so humble to esteem, so good to love." And 
Crashaw, when he sent "two green apricots" to his 
friend, poured out the sincere praise of his attachment. 
He was considered an imitator of Cowley, but they 
resembled each other only in their love of conceits. Of 
Cowley's boyish rhymes, a modern critic cannot be 



RICHARD CRASHAW. 325 

required to say any thing; for even the author professed 
himself unwilling to be obliged to read them all over. 
Yet his Poetical Blossoms were the offspring of a tree 
that might have produced golden fruit, if he had not 
liked better to carve its branches into quaint devices, 
than suffer them to spread into verdant strength. His 
was, indeed, a case of mental perversion 5 the rugged- 
ness of his lines, and the eccentricity of his imagery, 
are affirmed by his flattering biographer, Dr. Sprat, to 
have been " his choice, not his fault." The writer of 
the raciest and clearest prose sank into a mysterious 
expounder of the idlest trifles. 

His sacred poetry has been criticised by Johnson. 
The Davideis, his most ambitious attempt, was composed 
while he was a student at Cambridge. No one ever 
dreams that it was inspired by the Faery Queen, which 
used to lie in the window- seat of his father's house, or 
that Milton deemed the poet worthy of being admitted 
into the triumvirate, of which Spenser and Shakspeare 
were members. Fuller said of an ornamental writer, 
that the extravagance of his fancy had introduced a 
aew alphabet 5 and Cowley sought to effect a similar 
change in the language of poetry. He had wandered 
in the labyrinth until he preferred it to the open 
country. Difficulty was become essential to his amuse- 
ment. But we lose sight of the faults of the bard, 
in the truth and generosity of the Christian j and 
Chertsey, where 

The last accents flowed from Cowley's tongue, 
will continue to draw many footsteps to its honoured 
neighbourhood. 



326 



MORE, NORMS, BEAUMONT, FLATMAN. 



Of the fellow- collegian and friend of Milton, a notice 
will not be uninteresting. 

Henry More was born at Grantham, in Lincolnshire, 
on the 12th of October, 1614. His parents, who were 
rigid Calvinists, placed him under the care of a private 
tutor of their own persuasion, with whom he remained 
till his fourteenth year, when, by the advice of his 
uncle, he was removed to Eton, with strict injunctions 
to preserve his religious tenets. But More soon began 
to manifest an antipathy to the doctrines of Calvin. 
These symptoms of dissatisfaction did not escape the 
observation of his uncle, who expressed his displeasure 
in very angry terms. More was not an ordinary boy, 
and the threats of his relation only stimulated him to a 
deeper investigation of the belief in which he had been 
educated. Often, he tells us, while he took his solitary 
walk in the play-ground of the school, with his head 
on one side, and kicking the stones with his feet, as he 
was wont to do, the subject of religion occupied his 
thoughts 5 for even in my first childhood, he continues, 
an inward sense of the Divine Presence was so strong 
upon my mind, that I did then believe that there could 
no deed, word, or thought, be hidden from Him. From 
Eton, where he stayed three years, he was sent to 
Christ's College, Cambridge, and to his great delight 
was admitted under a tutor who was not a Calvinist. 
Here he immersed himself head over ears * in the study 
of philosophy, and devoted nearly four years to the 

* His own phrase. 



HENRY MORE. 327 

perusal of Aristotle, Cardan, Scaliger, &c, but he reaped 
no harvest for his toil. 

After he had taken his Bachelor's degree, he entered 
on a new course of study, replacing his former favourites 
with the platonic writers. He was also captivated by the 
Theologia Germanica of John Tauler, which he styled a 
golden little book. The writings of this individual were 
admired by Luther and Melancthon; and some of his 
sermons were approved by Bossuet, who considered 
him one of the most solid and correct of the mystics. 
More laboured with indefatigable perseverance, and the 
effects of his researches were quickly visible in a mind 
exalted to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, and a frame 
attenuated to skin and bone. He indulged in a belief 
that his soul had communicated some of its newly- 
acquired ethereality to his body, which, he assured his 
friends, at particular seasons exhaled the perfume of 
violets. His theory of the divine body is developed in 
his Dialogues. "The oracle of God," he said, "is not 
to be heard but in his Holy Temple, that is to say, in a 
good and holy man, thoroughly sanctified/ ' 

In 1640, he began to form his mystical speculations 
into the Psycho Zoia, a picture of platonic life in the 
soul, to the composition of which he thought himself 
impelled by some heavenly impulse. He was now in 
his twenty- sixth year, and appears to have been re- 
garded as a melancholy student, for some opposition 
was at first offered to his election to a fellowship, on the 
score of his sad and uncheerful disposition. He was, 
however, by nature inclined to excessive mirth, which 
he accounted one of his greatest infirmities. 

In the civil war, More was allowed to retain his 
fellowship 3 and the severe inquisitors who ejected 



328 HENRY MORE. 

Crashaw and Cowley, left the philosopher to dream 
with Plato in his academic bower *. But he was not 
without anxiety for the fate of his country; and once, 
on being informed of a great defeat sustained by the 
royal army, in the words of his biographer, his spirit 
sat itself down, and with tears bewailed the evils of his 
native land. 

He occasionally passed a few days at Ragley, in War- 
wickshire, the residence of his enthusiastic friend, Lady 
Conway, where he wrote several of his treatises. In 
1675 he was presented, by the brother of this lady, to a 
Prebend in the Church of Gloucester; but he quickly 
resigned it in favour of Dr. Fowler, for whose sake 
alone he is supposed to have accepted it. Preferment, 
indeed, was almost thrust upon him. Ward says, he 
had seen letters courting him to occupy some of the 
highest ecclesiastical offices in Ireland. The Deanery 
of Christ Church, and the Provostship of Trinity Col- 
lege, were among the number. He was, however, in- 
exorable in declining them. One nobleman, after 
tempting him in vain with two Bishoprics, prayed him 
not to be so morose or humoursome as to refuse all 
things he had not known so long as Christ's College. 
And when an English Bishopric had been procured for 
him, and his friends had succeeded in bringing him to 
Whitehall to kiss the King's hand, on discovering their 
real object, he resolutely insisted on returning to Cam- 
bridge immediately. These anecdotes show the simple 
and contented nature of the man. 

The evening of his life was as peaceful as the dawn. 
Having his mind enlightened with the noblest" views 
in the morning of his years, he went on shining more 

* Campbell. 



HENRY MORE. 329 

and more unto the perfect day. In his last sickness, 
he declared, with the tears in his eyes, that he had 
given his writings to the world with great sincerity, and 
that all his days had been spent in seeking after the 
good and the true. The day before his death, he replied 
to the question of one who watched by his bed-side, in 
that affecting passage of Cicero, beginning prceclarum 
ilium diem. He said, that he was going to be united to 
that company with whom he should be as well acquainted 
in a quarter of an hour, as if he had known them for 
years. This idea he has enlarged in a letter to a friend, 
who had requested from him some topics of consolation, 
to administer to a young lady in ill health*. 

It may be desirable to caution the reader that More 
did not employ the phrase of a pagan writer, in this 
closing scene of his existence, to the exclusion of the 
more delightful consolations of the Bible ; he only bor- 
rowed the words to apply them to the expression of 
Christian faith and reliance in the atonement of a 
Redeemer. Thus he gave them a new spirit and a 
new signification. 

He died on the 1st of September, 1687, in the seventy- 
third year of his age, and was buried in the chapel of 
the College, where the ashes of Mede and Cudworth 

* The friendship and society of amiable persons for feature and con- 
verse, the beauty of persons in the other world infinitely excelling that 
in this, as much as the purest star does the dirtiest clod of earth : and 
those whose persons and aspects are so lovely, it. is the genuine eradiation 
of the life of their very souls or spirits, and they are as assured of the cordial 
kindness they have one for another, and this at the very first entrance, as 
if they had been acquainted many years together. Nor is the affection of 
any father or mother to their only child, more dear and sincere than that 
of the holy inhabitants of the other world, towards good and innocent 
souls, that pass out of this earthly body into the condition of those heavenly 
spirits, those Angelical Ministers of the Divine Providence, who are ready 
about the godly, when they die, to conduct their souls to the happy place 
provided for them. — Letters on several Subjects, ed. by Elys, 1(594, p. 21. 



330 HENRY MORE. 

rest by his side. In person he was tall and thin, and 
in early life, of an agreeable florid countenance, though 
the intensity of his application in after-times imparted 
a more pallid hue to his features 3 but his complexion 
was always clear and healthful, and his eye hazel and 
vivid as an eagle*. The nature of his occupations did 
not encourage the cultivation of the lighter accomplish- 
ments -, but he had some skill in music, and played a 
little on the lute, till the painful ecstacy of the pleasure 
compelled him to relinquish it. His conversation was 
serious and pleasant, and Bishop Burnet, who visited 
him at Cambridge, spoke of him as an open-hearted 
Christian philosopher, who studied to establish men in 
the great principle of religion against Atheism. 

It is, however, to be lamented that this excellent man 
submitted his religious feelings to the direction of his 
imagination, or suffered them to assume even the faintest 
hue of a romantic or poetical character. He built, 
indeed, upon the Rock of Ages, yet he unintentionally 
defaced the majestic simplicity of Sacred Truth by the 
unlicensed indulgence of his fancy. He never for a 
moment suspected that he might be injuring by his 
conduct the cause he laboured so zealously to pro- 
mote. But the purity and tranquillity which he enjoyed 
are given to few. A spectator of the world only through 
his "loop-holes of retreat ;" unseduced by its allure- 
ments, uncorrupted by its pleasures — he did not always 
consider that every heart was not like his own. The 
orthodoxy of his belief can alone be vindicated by a 
careful perusal of his writings. In them it will be seen 
how firmly he grasped the promises of the Gospel, and 
with what a sleepless eye of faith he waited for their 

* Ward. 



HENRY MORE. 331 

accomplishment. From the declaration of the Scrip- 
ture, as from a lofty tower, he looked afar into a 
happier and more peaceful future. " This, or such-like 
rhapsodies," he says in his Dialogues, " do I often sing 
to myself in the silent night, or betimes in the morning 
at break of day; subjoining always that of our Saviour 
as a suitable Epiphonema to all, — Abraham saw my day 
afar off, and rejoiced at it. At this window I take breath, 
while I am choked and stifled with the crowd and 
stench of the daily wickedness of this present evil 
world 5 and am almost quite wearied out with the tedious - 
ness and irksomeness of this my earthly pilgrimage." 

The mysticism of More's works was only the reflec- 
tion of his life. He saw visions, and dreamed dreams. 
At one time, for ten days, he was, in his own phrase, 
no where, continuing all the time in a trance ; yet during 
this period he ate, drank, slept, and went into Hall as 
usual, but the thread of his ruminations was never 
broken. While in this state, he affirmed that his 
thoughts possessed a singular clearness ; his devotional 
feelings were not less ardent or powerful in their in- 
fluence. Mr. Ward, when he occasionally met him 
coming from his chamber after prayer, discerned an 
illumination over his countenance, " as if his face had 
been wholly overcast with a golden shower of love and 
purity." Let us recollect that this was said of one 
whom some of the most eminent of his contemporaries 
pronounced the holiest person on the face of the earth. 
Though he was fond of solitude, and regretted that he 
had sacrificed so many hours to conversation, there was 
nothing selfish in his character ; his love embraced every 
object. " A good man," he said, " would sometimes, in 
his own private reflections, be ready to kiss the very 



332 HENRY MORE. 

stones in the street." He was fond of meditating in the 
cool summer-evenings, when the air fanned " itself 
through the leaves of the arbour*/' and many inci- 
dental remarks in his prose works show him to have 
been a disciple of nature." 

He was charitable and benevolent to all. His cham- 
ber- door, we are told by one who knew him familiarly, 
was an hospital. In one of his Discourses on several 
Texts, he touches upon the sentiments with which a 
good man regards the unhappiness he is unable to 
remove. 

" And even the most miserable objects in this present 
scene of things cannot divest him of his happiness, but 
rather modify it -, the sweetness < of his spirit being 
melted into a kindly compassion in the behalf of 
others, whom, if he be able to help, it is a greater 
accession to his joy -, and if he cannot, the being 
conscious to himself of so sincere a compassion, and 
so harmonious and suitable to the present state of 
things, carries along with it some degree of pleasure, 
like mournful notes of music exquisitely well fitted 
to the sadness of the ditty." The sequestered paths 
of his own life were not much frequented by these melan- 
choly sufferers, but a disregard of money marked all 
his actions, and one of the wishes nearest to his heart 
was, the bequest of a valuable legacy to his beloved 
College. 

His philosophical works were all composed with the 
noblest intentions. The Leviathan of Hobbes, by its 
startling paradoxes and its bold assumption of truth, 
had gained many votaries, and it was in the hope of 
counteracting its pernicious tendency, that " a set 

* See his Dialogues, 



HENRY MORE. 333 

of men at Cambridge" undertook to examine and 
publicly assert the principles of religion and morality, 
on simple grounds, and upon a philosophical plan. 
The most distinguished of these illustrious champions 
were Cudworth, whom to name is to praise 5 the scien- 
tific Wilkins, whom Burnet declared the wisest clergy- 
man he ever knew 3 and our poet, who led the way, 
the Bishop says, to many that came after him*. 

More has been dethroned from his literary supre- 
macy, and from the most popular of authors, has become 
one of the most obscure. Yet, for many years after the 
Restoration, his works were held in extraordinary esteem. 
His philosophic writings are full of ingenuity and learning. 
He believed that the sacred knowledge of the Hebrews 
descended to Pythagoras, by whom it had been com- 
municated to Plato, and this delusion affected every 
thing he wrote and did. He imagined himself to be 
attended by a genius, like the Daemon of Socrates, and 
would sometimes remark, in reference to this unearthly 
agent, that " there was something about us that knew 
better than ourselves what we would be at." It is im- 
possible to suppress a smile at the philosopher who 
gravely assures us, that " Otho was pulled out of his 
bed by the ghost of Galba." His chapter on the employ- 
ments of the " Aerial People," in the Treatise on the 
Immortality of the Soul, is equally singular. But, when 
his fancy was not heated, he argued with great acuteness 
and precision, and no man ran the spear through his 
own shadows with greater dexterity. He frequently 
pleases, though he rarely convinces ; and it should 
always be remembered, that his antagonist, Hobbes, 
declared his admiration of his philosophy, and that 

* Burnet's History of his own Time. Oxford edition, 1823, vol. i., 
p. 322. 



334 HENRY MORE. 

Addison commended his system of Ethics in the 
Spectator. The vanity of Hobbes, and the taste of 
Addison, speak powerfully in his cause. 

As a scholar, he was widely and deeply read, but 
learning he valued only as subservient to the higher 
and weightier matters of wisdom and truth. He con- 
stantly asserted that piety was the only key of true 
knowledge, which could proceed alone out of purity of 
life. He rejoiced that he was no wholesale man, for he 
said that a little armour was sufficient, if well placed. 

His prose is superior to his verse. No successful 
appeal can be made from Dr. Southey's severe judg- 
ment upon the Song of the Soul. His ears were first 
tuned to poetry by the music of the Faery Queen, which 
his father often read aloud on the winter evenings: 
the harp of Spenser was never touched by a ruder hand. 
But to the few who are willing to accept the grandeur of 
the conception for the poverty of the execution, the 
poems of More will not be destitute of interest. He did 
not wander along the Great Sea of Beauty without be- 
holding the forms that rose from its waters ; and from 
the intricacies of his harsh and gnarled phraseology, 
thoughts of grace and tenderness often come out to 
meet us. Mr. Campbell has compared his poetry to 
some strange grotto, whose gloomy labyrinths we might 
be curious to explore for the strange associations they 
excite. 

More was happy in the fellowship of some excellent 
men, who partook of his innocence, simplicity, and 
enthusiasm. Of these, by far the most remarkable was, 
John Norris, whose few poems display no ordinary 
genius, and whose sermons on the Beatitudes, overflow 
with sensibility. His life was in harmony with his pro- 



JOSEPH BEAUMONT. 335 

fessionj he built his tabernacle away from the tumult 
of the world, and set up his pillar of rest in a holy 
place*. His writings are imbued with the serene 
thoughtfulness of an amiable mind. His charming 
Idea of Happiness was the meditation of a few broken 
hours in a garden. Although not unvisited by those 
raptures, on account of which he gave More the name 
of the Intellectual Epicure, his fancy was more sober 
and temperate. His glimpses of a brighter country 
were not less vivid than those of his friend; but he 
descended from his heavenly contemplations with a 
more solemn awe, and a more reverential silence. 

Joseph Beaumont, a contemporary and opponent of 
More, was born at Hadleigh, in Suffolk, March 13 th, 
1615, and having received the rudiments of his educa- 
tion in the Grammar School of that town, he was, in 
his sixteenth year, sent to Cambridge, and entered of 
Peterhouse. The love of study, which had marked his 
boyhood, accompanied him to the University, and 
together with the propriety of his demeanour, attracted 
the notice of Dr. Cosins, the master of Peterhouse. 
After obtaining his Bachelor's Degree, he was elected 
Fellow and Tutor of his College. The rebellion, how- 
ever, drove him from Cambridge, and he retired to his 
native place, where he forgot his persecutions in the 
composition of his elaborate poem Psyche, which he 
completed with astonishing rapidity. Of this work, 
Pope has observed that it contains a great many flowers 
well worth the gathering, and that a man who has the 
art of stealing wisely, will find his account in reading it. 
Beaumont possessed in Bishop Wren, a sincere friend 

* His own words. 



336 JOSEPH BEAUMONT. 

and a liberal patron : when deprived of all his prefer- 
ments by the Parliament, that Prelate welcomed him to 
his house, appointed him domestic chaplain, and in 
1650, gave him his step -daughter in marriage: with 
this lady, Beaumont lived in retirement until the Resto- 
ration drew him from his seclusion. He was created 
Doctor of Divinity in 1660, by the King's Letters, and 
from this time his life was prosperous and tranquil. He 
succeeded Dr. Pearson in the Mastership of Jesus 
College, in 1662, which he shortly afterwards exchanged 
for that of Peterhouse. In 1670, he was chosen Regius 
Professor of Divinity, a situation he retained till his 
death in 1699. He was buried in the College Chapel, 
where his son Charles also lies. 

Beaumont has been highly commended for the ex- 
cellence of his Latin style. He was, also, an artist. 
The pictures by the altar of Peterhouse Chapel were 
drawn by him in chalk and charcoal $ and Carter, the 
Cambridge historian, thought the Wise Men's Offering, 
on the north side, particularly fine. 

Dr. Southey has condemned Psyche to oblivion, as 
unreadably dull $ and few students will be found armed 
with sufficient patience to penetrate through the dreari- 
ness of its twenty cantos. But the barren heath is 
intersected by many green and flowery paths, and 
nourished by little streams of genuine poetry. The 
misfortune is, that we grow weary before we find them. 
The poem represents the intercourse between Christ 
and the human spirit ; and Beaumont endeavoured to 
portray a soul conducted by Divine Grace and her 
guardian angel, through all the temptations and assaults 
of its earthly enemies, into the permanent happiness of 
heaven. If he had restricted himself to an undeviating 



JOSEPH BEAUMONT. 33/ 

observance of this outline, many of the defects of the 
work would have been avoided 5 but he added fable to 
fable, and piled truth upon fiction, with so rash and 
tasteless a hand, as to impair not only the aspect, but 
the foundation of the structure. It may not be just to , 
censure him for the familiarity of his expressions, and 
the ludicrous contrasts which every page presents. 
The theological literature of the age is open to a like 
reproof. In one of Dr. Hammond's Sermons, the angels 
are called " glittering courtiers of the superior world*:" 
and the reader of Jeremy Taylor will not require to be 
reminded how often that master of eloquence degrades 
the dignity of a comparison by a common allusion or 
inappropriate expletive, or how frequently he raises 
statues of pure gold on pedestals of clay. In his sub- 
limest productions these spots are visible, detracting 
from the solemnity of the theme, in the same manner 
as a humorous extravagance of Hogarth sketched in 
the corner of a picture by Raphael. While Taylor 
only stooped at long intervals to the prevailing corrup- 
tions of style, Beaumont seldom elevated himself above 
them. But when he rose into a clearer element, his 
imagination was proportionably spiritualized. When he 
unfolds the "ruby gates" of the Orient, and discloses 
to our eyes the spirit of the Morning "mounting his 
"chariot of gold," whose "diamond wheels" burn along 
the paths of Heaven, we regret that his taste was 
not always the handmaid of his fancy. 

Beaumont has not been admitted into any collection 
of specimens of our poets 3 but the advice of Pope 
has drawn a few industrious eyes to his pages j and if 
Psyche should at a future period be reprinted, it will be 

, * Sermons, 1649, p. 51. 



338 FLATMAN. 

the duty of the Editor to show that the " art of stealing 
wisely" is not lost among us. 

Wood has honoured Flatman with the title of an 
eminent poet. He painted better than he wrote, and 
Granger esteemed one of his heads worth a ream of his 
Pindarics. These justify the satire of Lord Rochester ; 
but Pope copied him in The Dying Christian to his Soul, 
without thinking it necessary to mention the obligation. 
The Thought of Death must yield to the natural and 
impressive earnestness of the following verses : — 

Oh, the sad day, 
When friends shall shake their heads, and say 

Oh miserable me. 
Hark how he groans ! look how he pants for breath ! 
See how he struggles with the pangs of Death ! 
When they shall say of these poor eyes, 

How hollow and how dim they be ! 
Mark how his breast doth swell and rise 
Against his potent enemy ! 
When some old friend shall step to my bed-side, 
Touch my chill face, and thence shall gently slide ; 
And when his next companions say 
" How doth he do ? What hopes ?" shall turn away ; 
Answering only with a lift-up hand — 
"Who can his fate withstand?" 
Then shall a gasp or two do more 
Than e'er my rhetoric could before ; 
Persuade the peevish world to trouble me no more *. 

* The only place in which I have seen this poem quoted, is in a note 
in Elton's reprint of Habington. 



SUPPLEMENT. 



341 



SUPPLEMENT. 



Page 6. — Archbishop Sharp, whom Burnet pronounced 
one of the most popular preachers of the age, was a 
great reader of Shakspeare. Dr. Mangey, who married 
his daughter, told the Speaker Onslow, that he advised 
all young Divines to unite the reading of Shakspeare to 
the study of the Scriptures 5 and Dr. Lisle, Bishop of 
Norwich, who had been Chaplain to Archbishop Wake, 
assured Onslow that Sharp's declaration, "that the 
Bible and Shakspeare had made him Archbishop of 
York," was often repeated at Lambeth Palace, — See 
Onslow's note to the Oxford edition of Burnefs History 
of his own Time, vol. iii., p. 100. 

Sharp was celebrated for the vigour and effect with 
which his Sermons were delivered. 

FLETCHER. 

Page 29. — Dr. Fletcher formed one of the Commission 
of the Metropolitan Visitation, appointed in 1581. — 
Strype's Life of Bishop Grindal, p. 396, Oxford edition. 
In May 1596, Bishop Fletcher wrote to Lord Burleigh, 
requesting that nobleman to procure for his brother the 
appointment of Master Extraordinary in Chancery. — 
Strype's Annals of the Reformation, vol. iv., p. 373. 
Dr. Fletcher was also Remembrancer of the City of 
London, an office obtained for him by Queen Elizabeth, 
who addressed a long letter in her own hand to the 
Lord Mayor, &c, upon the subject. A copy of this 
singular epistle I have been permitted to peruse, and 



342 SUPPLEMENT. 

the terms in which Dr. Fletcher is recommended, evince 
the respect he was held in by Elizabeth. 

Page 55. — This would have been more correctly ex- 
pressed by saying, that three new books of the Faerie 
Queen were published in 1596. 

WITHER. 

Page 89. — Wither was again in prison in 1621. Mr. 
Collier has communicated to me the following interest- 
ing extracts from the Registers of the Privy Council : — 

26 June, 1621. 
A Warrant to John Perrial, to bring before the Lords the 

person of George Wither. 

27 June, 1621. 
This day George Wither, Gent., having been sent for by 

warrant from the Lords, hath tendred his appearance, which 
for his indemnity is here entred, he being nevertheless injoined 
to remaine in the custody of the Messenger, until by order 
from the Lords he shalbe dismissed. ] 

On the same day,, however, we find from another 
entry, that the Council issued a warrant to commit 
George Wither close prisoner into the Marshalsea, 
until further order. 

15 March, 1621. 
A warrant to the Keeper of the Marshalsea, to enlarge and 
sett at liberty the person of George Wythers, upon Bond, to be 
given by him, with a Suretie before the Clerke of the Councell 
attendant, to his Majesty's use for his forthcomeing and ap- 
pearance at all tyme, as there shalbe cause. 

Page 115 — One stanza from the " Prayer of Ha- 
bakkuk," has been frequently quoted -, a free animated 
manner pervades the entire poem : — 

The Prayer of Habakkuk. 
God Almighty he came down ; 
Down he came from Theman-ward ; 



SUPPLEMENT. 343 

And the matchless Holy One 
From Mount Paran forth appeared, 
Heaven o'erspreading with his rays, 
And earth filling with his praise. 

Sun-like was his glorious light ; 
From his side there did appear 
Beaming rays that shined bright ; 
And his power he shrouded there. 
Plagues before his face he sent ; 
At his feet hot coals there went. 

Where He stood, He measure took 
Of the earth, and viewed it well ; 
Nations vanish'd at his look ; 
Ancient hills to powder fell-- 

* * * # 

Through the earth Thou rifts didst make, 
And the rivers there did flow : 
Mountains seeing Thee did shake, 
And away the floods did go — 
From the deep a voice was heard, 
And his hands on high he rear'd. 

SANDYS. 

Page 128.— An erroneous calculation of the extent of 
the M S. alone prevented the insertion of a more copious 
notice of this interesting poet, in the earlier portion of 
the volume. 

George Sandys, a younger son of the Archbishop, 
was born at the palace of Bishop Thorp, in 1587, and 
in his eleventh year was matriculated at St. Marys 
Hall 5 but Wood conjectures that he afterwards emi- 
grated to Corpus Christi College. It does not appear that 
he took any degree. In August, 1610, he set out on 
his travels, during which he visited the most interesting 



344 SUPPLEMENT. 

cities of Europe, and extended his researches into Egypt 
and the Holy Land. After an absence of several years 
he returned to England, and prepared the history of his 
wanderings, which issued from the press in 1615. He 
seems also to have been one of the early residents in 
Virginia 3 for Drayton, in an Elegy addressed to Sandys, 
speaks of him as Treasurer to the English Company in 
that country. After his return, he spent much of his 
time with his sister, Lady Wenman, at Caswell, near 
Witney, in Oxfordshire. This situation was rendered 
still more agreeable to him from its proximity to the 
retreat of his accomplished and amiable friend, Lord 
Falkland, whom to know was to esteem. In this 
delightful seclusion he meditated on the dangers he had 
escaped, and acknowledged, the care of that Heavenly 
Shepherd by whom he had been conducted in all his 
journeyings. He has expressed his feelings in that 
admirable poem, Deo. Opt. Max. : — 

O ! who hath tasted of Thy clemency 

In greater measure, or more oft than I ? 

My grateful verse thy goodness shall display, 

O Thou, who went 1 st along in all my way — , 

To where the morning, with perfumed wings, 

From the high mountains of Panchsea springs 

To that new-found-out-world, where sober night 

Takes from the Antipodes her silent flight ; 

To those dark seas where horrid winter reigns, 

And hinds the stubborn floods in icy chains ; 

To Lybian wastes, whose thirst no showers assuage, 

And where swolPn Nilus cools the lions rage. 

Thy wonders on the deep have I beheld, 

Yet all by those on Judah's hills excell'd ; 

There where the Virgin's Son his doctrine taught, 

His miracles and our redemption wrought, 



SUPPLEMENT. 345 

Where I, by Thee inspired, his praises sung, 
And on his sepulchre my offering hung ; 
Which way soe'er I turn my face or feet, 
I see Thy glory and Thy mercy meet ; 
Met on the Thracian shores, when in the strife 
Of frantic Simoans thou preserv'dst my life — 
So when Arabian thieves belaid us round, 
And when by all abandon d, Thee I found. 
# # # # 

Then brought' st me home in safety, that this earth 
Might bury me, which fed me from my birth. 

Having finished the sacred work for which he believed 
himself designed, and paid his vows at the altar of his 
God, Sandys was gathered to his fathers in the begin- 
ning of March, 1643. He died at Boxley Abbey, the 
seat of his niece, Lady Margaret Wyat, and was buried 
in the chancel of the Parish Church, without any monu- 
ment. In the Register he is styled the most illustrious 
poet of his age ; a title the amiable minstrel would have 
been the first to reject. But Pope is known to have 
studied his writings with great pleasure 5 and Dryden 
affirmed him to be the best versifier of the day. At his 
death he was one of the Gentlemen of the Privy 
Chamber to Charles the First, who highly valued his 
productions. 

The Paraphrase of the Psalms has been already re- 
ferred to. These verses are taken from the 102nd and 
131st Psalms.— 

Like desert-haunting pelicans, 

In cities not less desolate : 
Like screech-owls who, with ominous strains, 

Disturb the night, and daylight hate ; 

A sparrow which hath lost his mate, 
And on a pinnacle complains. 



346 SUPPLEMENT. 

My days short as the evening shade, 

As morning dew consume away ; 
As grass cut down with scythes I fade, 

Or like a flower cropt yesterday. 

But, Lord, thou suffer' st no decay, 
Thy promises shall never vade*. 

Thou, Lord, my witness art 

I am not proud of heart, 

Nor look with lofty eyes, 

None envy, nor despise. 

Nor to vain pomp apply 

My thoughts, nor soar too high : 

But in behaviour mild, 

And as a tender child, 

Weaned from his mother s breast, 

On Thee alone I rest. 

O Israel, adore 

The Lord for ever more. 

Be He the only scope 

Of thy unfainting hope. 

Sandys' s sister married Anthony Aucher, and was 
grandmother to the poet Thomas Stanley 3 and from 
the same Lady, James Hammond was descended!. 

BRAITHWAIT. 

Page 128. — Mr. Collier has pointed out to me another 
allusion to Wither, by Braithwait, in Times Curtaine 
Drawne, 1621, where, after glancing at Abuses Whipt and 
Stript, he says in the margin, with evident reference to 
Wither — " One whom I admire, being no less happy for 
his native invention, than excellent for his proper and 
elegant dimension." The latter part of the passage 
seems to imply a compliment to the personal appear- 

* Depart — pass away, 
t Brydges's note in the reprint of Drayton's Select Poems* 



SUPPLEMENT. 347 

ance of our poet. Braithwait was his contemporary 
at Oxford, having been entered a Commoner of Oriel 
College, in 1604. Like his friend, too, he was more 
remarkablefor his addiction to poetry and general litera- 
ture, than to the prescribed studies of the University. 
His after-life was principally passed in the country, and 
he is said by Wood, to have left behind him the cha- 
racter of a well-bred gentleman and a good neighbour. 

PEACHAM. 

Page 132. — Henry Peacham, whom Warton calls an 
elegant and learned writer, was born about 1576, and 
became a student of Trinity College, Cambridge, where 
he shared in the paternal generosity of Nevil, whom 
he panegyrized in the Gentleman s Exercise. He appears 
to have been patronised by the amiable Princess 
Elizabeth, on whose marriage he wrote his " Nuptial 
Hymns," which have been reprinted by Waldron in 
the Literary Museum, His life was one of sorrow and 
dependence — at one time, a travelling tutor, at another, 
the master of a Free School at Windham, in Norfolk, 
an employment to which he was exceedingly averse. 
Malone thinks that he took orders, and died in 1650. 
Sir John Hawkins says, that he subsisted in his old 
age by writing penny books for children. His Emblems 
were published in 1612, and a second volume was pre- 
pared, but did not pass the press. Besides being a good 
scholar, he was a clever artist, and amused himself in 
painting his friends, or imitating each " strange field 
flower," or " rare seen fly." In the months of June 
and July, (he says, Drawing and Limning, Lib. ], p. 57 ,) 
I was wont at my leisure to walk into the fields, and 
get all manner of flies, flowers, herbs, &c, which I 



348 SUPPLEMENT. 

either put presently into colours, or kept preserved all 
the year, to imitate at my leisure, in close boxes." 
Peacham merited a better fortune. 

WITHER. 

Page 169. — Burton has the following entry in his 
Diary, December 22, 1656: — 

" Colonel Whetham offered a petition in behalf of Colonel 
"Wither. 

"Mr. Speaker said he had also a copy of very good verses, 
from the same hand, to offer.' ' 

Mr. Rutt supposes this copy of verses to have been 
the Boni Ominis Votum, which was printed in 1656, 
and was occasioned, as we are told by Wood, by the 
summoning of extraordinary grand juries from the 
Baronets, Knights, &c, to serve in their several 
counties during the summer assizes. 

FISHER. 

Page 191. — Various passages in the history of Fisher 
countenance this belief. Having taken a degree at 
Magdalen College, Cambridge, he threw off his gown, 
and going over to Brabant, joined the Garrison of 
Bolduc. He remained there only a short time, and 
on his return to England was made an Ensign in 
the army sent against the Scots in 1639. In this 
expedition he formed an acquaintance with the 
poet Lovelace, and may, at the same time, have be- 
come intimate with Wither, who was, as we have seen, 
attached to one of the regiments. Fisher continued 
an active loyalist until the melancholy defeat on 
Marston Moor, when he fled to London in great 



SUPPLEMENT. 349 

poverty, and attempted to replenish his purse by 
flattering the triumphant republicans. His reward did 
not correspond with his expectations,, and he lingered 
on in penury until the Restoration,, when he once more 
changed his political sentiments, and claimed a recom- 
pense for his alleged sufferings in the King's behalf. 
He expired in a coffee-house in the Old Bailey, on the 
2nd of April, 1693, and was interred in the burial- 
ground of St. Sepulchre on the 6th of the same month. 
Wood admits the merit of some of his Latin verses, and 
he seems to have been a person of some learning and 
very little discretion. 

Wither also prefixed verses to Drayton's Poly-Olbion, 
and comforted the author with the assurance that ages 
to come would "hug" his poesy. But these ages are 
not arrived yet. 

LOVELACE. 

Page 79. — Lovelace is not altogether unconnected with 
the life of Wither. The persecution he experienced arose 
from his declaration of respect to the King, in carrying up 
a petition in his favour to the House of Commons, from 
the county of Kent. For this act he was committed to 
the Gate-house at Westminster, where he was confined 
three or four months, and only obtained his liberation 
on giving security to a large amount, not to stir out of 
the lines of communication without a pass from the 
Speaker. Headley has quoted some verses by Andrew 
Marvel, referring to this imprisonment. He is addressing 
Lovelace on the publication of his Lucasta : — 

Some reading your Lucasta, will allege 
You wrong' d in her the house's privilege ; 



350 SUPPLEMENT. 

Some, that you under sequestration are, 
Because you write when going to the war — 
And one the book prohibits, because Kent 
The first petition by the author sent. 

But though his own exertions were thus paralyzed, 
he furnished one of his brothers with funds to promote 
the cause of the Royalists, and supported another who 
was studying the art of war in Holland. After the 
execution of Charles he fell into a despondency, which 
was deepened by the indigence of his condition. From 
the most accomplished and courted of cavaliers, he was 
degraded to a wanderer and a beggar. His apparel, 
which had formerly been of " cloth of silver and gold," 
consisted only of a few miserable rags. Aubrey says, 
that for several months he had an allowance of twenty 
shillings a week, which was paid to him every Monday 
by George Pett, a haberdasher in Fleet- street. Accord- 
ing to Wood, he died in a very mean lodging, near 
Shoe Lane, and was buried in the church of St. Bride. 
Aubrey says, his death happened in a cellar in Long 
Acre. 

Lovelace had no inconsiderable portion of true poetic 
feeling. The latter part of the epitaph on Mrs. Filmer, 
has been imitated by Collins : — 

But see, the rapid spheres stand still 
And tune themselves unto her will ; 
Thus, although this marble must, 
As all things, crumble into dust ; 
And though you find this fair-built tomb 
Ashes, as what lies in its womb, 
Yet, her saint-like name shall shine, 
A living glory in this shrine, 
And her eternal fame be read, 
When all but very Virtue's dead ! 



SUPPLEMENT. 351 

HERRICK. 

Page 1 92. — When Nichols wrote the History of Lei- 
cestershire, in 1798,, the Farewell to Dean Bourn was 
remembered by some old persons of that parish, to 
whom it had been orally bequeathed by their ancestors. 
They had also a tradition that Herrick was the original 
author of Poor Robins Almanac, first published in 1662. 
After his ejection from his preferment, he was thrown 
on his own resources, and the scheme of such a 
popular production was not unlikely to suggest itself. 

QUARLES. 

Page 214. — It happens, unfortunately for Quarks, 
that his beauties rarely exist in clusters -, the perfect 
fruit can only be found after a careful search. This 
composition, on a verse in Proverbs, is interesting, as 
clearly manifesting the muscular force of the writer's 
mind: — 

"Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for 
riches make themselves wings — they flie away as an eagle/' — 
Proverbs xxiii. 8. 

False world, thou ly'st : thou canst not lend 

The least delight : 
Thy favours cannot gain a friend, 

They are so slight : 
Thy morning pleasures make an end 

To please* at night. 
Poor are the wants that thou suppliest ; 
And yet thou vaunt'st, and yet thou viest 
With heaven; fond earth, thou boast'st; false world, 
thou liest. 

Thy babbling tongue tells golden tales 

Of endless treasure ; 
Thy bounty offers easy sales 

Of lasting pleasure. 



352 SUPPLEMENT. 

Thou ask'st the conscience what she ails, 

And swear'st to ease her. 
There's none can want where thou suppliest, 
There's none can give where thou deniest. 
Alas ! fond world, thou boast' st; false world, thou liest. 

What well-advised ear regards 

What earth can say ? 
Thy words are gold, but thy rewards 

Are painted clay ; 
Thy cunning can but pack the cards, 

Thou canst not play. 
Thy game at weakest, still thou viest 
If seen, and then revy'd, deniest — 
Thou art not what thou seem'st ; false world, thou liest. 

Thy tinsel bosome seems a mint 

Of new-coin' d treasure, 
A paradise that has no stint, 

No change, no measure ; 
A painted cask, but nothing in't, 

Nor wealth, nor pleasure. 
Vain earth ! that falsely thus compliest 
With man ; vain man ! that thou reliest 
On earth ; vain man, thou dot'st ; vain earth, thou liest 

What mean dull souls, in this high measure, 

To haberdash 
In earth's base wares, whose greatest treasure 

Is dross and trash ? 
The height of whose enchanting pleasure 

Is but a flash ? 
Are these the goods that thou suppliest 
Us mortals with ? Are these the highest? 
Can these bring cordial peace ? False world, thou liest. 

Emb., book ii. 

Although Quarks failed in his attempts at comedy, 
all his works show considerable dramatic life and 
spirit. The Shepherd watching his flocks by night, is a 
pleasing picture : — 



SUPPLEMENT. 353 

What strange affrights are these, that thus arrest 
My lab ring soul and spoil me of my rest ! 

Sometimes methinks I hear 

Loud whoops of triumph sounding in mine ear ; 

Sometimes the music of celestial numbers 

Sweetens my thoughts and casts my soul in slumbers, 

And then the discord of infernal cries, 

And horrid shrieks, awake my closing eyes ; 

Methinks my trembling cot doth not allow 

Such restful ease, as it was wont to do. 

Pray God my flocks be safe ; my dreams foretell 

Some strange designs ; pray God that all be well ! 

I'll up (for sure the wasted night grows old), 

And if that need require, secure my fold. 

Lord, how the heavens be spangled ! How each spark 

Contends for greater brightness, to undark 

The shades of night, and in a silent story 

Declare the greatness of their Makers glory ! 

But, hark! am I deceived? or does mine ear 

Perceive a noise of footsteps drawing near? 

What midnight wanderer is grown so bold, 

At such a season, to ramble near my fold ? 

Sure 'tis some pilgrim burdened with the grief 

Of a lost way, or else some nightly thief; 

Or else, perchance, some shepherd that doth fly 

From his affrighted rest, as well as I. 

No, 'tis some friend, or else my dog had ne'er 

Been silent half so long. Ho ! who goes there ? 

Shepherds Oracle *, p. 49. 

Quarles divided his Prayers and Meditations into two 
parts. In the first, as Dr. Dibdin has remarked, he 
introduces various immoral characters, indulging them- 
selves in commendations (under the most plausible 
modes of reasoning) of their particular habits and pur- 
suits ; but immediately after, certain prohibitory texts 

2 A 



354 SUPPLEMENT. 

of Scripture occur to them, which produce contrition 
and remorse. 

These are followed by a soliloquy on the heinousness 
of their sins, and by a prayer that they may be for- 
given. I extract one of the characters entire. 

The Censorious Man. 

I know there is much of the seed of the serpent in him, by 
his very looks, if his words betrayed him not. He hath eaten 
the egg of the cockatrice, and surely he remaineth in a state 
of perdition. He is not within the covenant, and abideth in 
the gall of bitterness. His studied prayers show him to be a 
high malignant, and his Jesu-worship concludes him Popishly 
affected. He comes not to our private meetings, nor con- 
tributes a penny to the cause. He cries up learning and the 
book of common prayer, and takes no arms to hasten reforma- 
tion. He fears God for his own ends, for the spirit of Anti- 
christ is in him. * * Wherefore my soul detesteth him, 
and I will have no conversation with him, for what fellowship 
hath light with darkness, or the pure in heart with the un- 
clean ? Sometimes he is a publican, sometimes a pharisee, and 
always a hypocrite. He rails against the altar as loud as we, 
and yet he cringes and makes an idol of the name of Jesus. 
He is quick-sighted to the infirmities of the Saints, and in 
his heart rejoices at our failings. He honours not a preaching 
ministry, and too much leans to a church-government. He 
' paints devotion on his face, while pride is stamped within his 
heart. He places sanctity in the walls of a steeple-house, 
and adores the sacrament with his popish knee. His religion 
is a weather-cock, which turns its breast to every blast of wind. 
With the pure he seems pure, and with the wicked he will 
join in fellowship. A sober language is in his mouth, but the 
poison of asps is under his tongue. He is a Laodicean in 
his faith, a Nicolaitan in his works, a Pharisee in his disguise, 
and "I thank my God I am not as this man/' 



SUPPLEMENT. 355 

But stay, my soul ; take heed whilst thou judge another, 
lest God judge thee. How comest thou so expert in another's 
heart, being so often deceived in thy own ? A Saul to-day 
may prove a Paul to morrow. Take heed whilst thou wouldst 
seem religious, thou appear not uncharitable ; and whilst thou 
judgest man, thou be not judged of God, who saith 

Judge not, that ye be not judged. — Matthew vii. 1. 

John vii. 24. 
Judge not according to the appearance, but judge 
righteous judgment. 

Romans xiv. 10, 13. 

But why dost thou judge thy brother ? or why dost 
thou set at nought thy brother ? We shall all stand 
before the judgment-seat of Christ. 

Let us not, therefore, judge one another any more; 
but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling- 
block, or an occasion to fall, in his brother's way. 

1 Cor. iv. 5. 

Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord 
come ; who both will bring to light the hidden things 
of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of 
the hearts. 

Psalm l. 6.— God is Judge himself. 

his soliloquy. 

Has thy brother, O my soul, a beam in his eye; and hast thou 
no mote in thine ? Clear thine own, and thou wilt see the 
better to cleanse his. If a thief be in his candle, blow it not 
out, lest thou wrong the flame ; but if thy snuffers be of gold, 
snuff it. Has he 'offended thee? forgive him: hath he 
trespassed against the congregation ? reprove him : hath he 
sinned against God? pray for him. O my soul, how un- 
charitable hast thou been ! how pharisaically hast thou judged. 
Being sick of the jaundice, how hast thou censured another 

2 a 2 



356* 



SUPPLEMENT. 



yellow, and with blotted fingers made his blur the greater ? 
How has the pride of thy own heart blinded thee toward 
thyself! how quiek-sighted to another f Thy brother has 
slipped, but thou hast fallen, and hast blanched thy own 
impiety with the publishing his sin. Like a fly, thou stingest 
his sores, and feedest on his corruptions. Jesus came eating 
and drinking, and was judged a glutton. John came fasting, 
and was challenged with being a devil. Judge not, my soul,, 
lest thou be judged. Malign not thy brother, lest God laugh 
at thy destruction. Wouldst thou escape the punishment? 
judge thyself. Wouldst thou avoid the sin ? humble thyself 

HIS PRAYER. 

O God, that art the only searcher of the reins, to whom the 
secrets of the heart of man are only known, to whom alone 
the judgment of our thoughts, our words, and deeds, belong, 
and to whose sentence we must stand or fall, — I, a presump- 
tuous sinner, that have thrust into thy place, and boldly have 
presumed to execute thy office, do here as humbly confess 
the insolence of mine attempt, and, with a sorrowful heart* 
repent me of my doings ; and though my convinced con- 
science can look for nothing from thy wrathful hand but the 
same measure which I measured to another, yet, in the confi- 
dence of that mercy which thou hast promised to all those that 
truly and unfeignedly believe, I am become an humble suitor 
for thy gracious pardon. Lord, if thou search me but with 
a favourable eye, I shall appear much more unrighteous in 
thy sight than this my uncharitably-condemned brother did 
in mine. O, look not, Lord, upon me as I am, lest thou 
abhor me; but, through the merits of my blessed Saviour, 
cast a gracious eye upon me. Let his humility satisfy for 
my presumption, and let his meritorious sufferings answer 
for my vile uncharitableness. Let not the voice of my offence 
provoke thee with a stronger cry than the language of his 
intercession. Remove from me, O God, all spiritual pride, 
and make me little in my own conceit. Lord, light me to 
myself, that by thy light I may discern how dark I am. 



SUPPLEMENT. 357 

Lighten that darkness by thy Holy Spirit, that I may search 
into my own corruptions : and since, O God, all gifts and graces 
are but nothing, and nothing can be acceptable in thy sight 
without charity, quicken the dulness of my faint affections, 
that I may love my brother as I ought. Soften my marble 
heart, that it may melt at his infirmities. Make me careful 
in the examination of my own ways, and most severe against 
my own offences. Pull out the beam of mine own eye, that 
I may see clearly and reprove wisely. Take from me, O Lord, 
all grudging, envy, and malice, that my seasonable reproofs 
may win my brother. Preserve my heart from all censorious 
thoughts, and keep my tongue from striking at his name. 
Grant that I make right use of his infirmities, and read good 
lessons in his failings ; that loving him in thee, and thee in 
him, according to thy command, we may both be united in 
thee as members of thee : that thou mayest receive honour 
from our communion here, and we eternal glory from thee 
hereafter, in the world to come. 

Quarles wrote a few lines To the pretious Memory of 
Dr. Martin Luthef, before Thomas Hayne's account of 
that distinguished reformer, published in 1641. They 
begin well, but conclude in a strain which harmonizes 
with the accompanying effusion of Vicars. Hayne, 
after he had taken his Bachelor's Degree, became an 
Usher of Merchant Tailors' School, and afterwards, 
about 1612, of Christ's Hospital. Wood says, that he 
was a noted critic, an excellent linguist, and a solid 
divine, beloved of learned men, and particularly re- 
spected by Selden. He died on the 27th of July, 
1645. A very long and laudatory character, which the 
affection of his friends had inscribed upon his monu- 
ment, was consumed, together with the church where 
he lay, in the great fire of London. By his will he 
made a liberal bequest to his native village, near 



358 SUPPLEMENT. 

Leicester; and Dr. Bliss mentions an unengraved 
portrait of him, which still exists in the library of 
that town. 

The following simile is very ingenious and elegant : — 

Even as the needle that directs the hour, 
(Touch'd with the load-stone) by the secret power 
Of hidden nature, points upon the pole ; 
Even so the wavering powers of my soul, 
Touched by the virtue of thy Spirit, flee 
From what is earth, and point alone to Thee. 

HERBERT. 

Page 250. — Herbert's Musae Responsorice consist of 
fifty Epigrams, intended as answers to a poem written 
by Melville, against the discipline of the established 
church. Three of them are inscribed to James, one to 
the Prince of Wales, one to the Bishop of Winchester, 
one to the people of Scotland, exhorting them to peace, 
one to those whom he supposed led astray by Melville 
and other writers of his persuasion -, the last to the 
Deity, and the rest to Melville himself. — Zouch. 

Page 264. — Sir Thomas Herbert relates, in the Carolina 
Threnodia, or Remains of the two last years of Charles 
the First, that the unfortunate monarch frequently 
read Bishop Andrews's Sermons, Hooker's Ecclesiastical 
Polity, Dr. Hammond's Works, Sandys's Paraphrase, 
the Faery Queen, &c, and Herbert's poems. To the 
hasty and contemptuous opinion expressed of the 
Temple by Mr. Headley, we may oppose the generous 
commendation of Mr. Coleridge, one of the most amiable 
and eloquent of modern poets. " Having mentioned the 
name of Herbert, that model of a man, a gentleman 



SUPPLEMENT. 359 

and a clergyman, let me add, that the quaintness of 
some of his thoughts (not of his diction, than which 
nothing can be more pure, manly, and unaffected), has 
blinded modern readers to the great general merit of 
his poems, which are for the most part excellent in 
their kind."— Tfte Friend, vol. i. p, 67. See also Biograph. 
Literar., p. 98. 

DUPORT. 

Page 286. — Dr. Zouch says that Duport imbibed the 
very spirit of Homer. His versions of Job, the Song of 
Solomon, and the Psalms, go far to warrant this high 
eulogium. In the Musce Subsecivce (autore J. D. Cantab, 
1676), Herbert's virtues are frequently celebrated. These 
lines occur on his life, by Walton : — 

Tu quale vatis Templum ibi, et ubi ccelum et Deus ; 

Tu quale nobis, intuendum clericis 

Speculum Sacerdotale, tu qualem pius 

Pastoris ideam et libro et vita tua. 

Tu quale sancitatis, et mentis bonae, 

Morumque nobis tradis exemplum, ac typum, 

Typum magistro scilicet tuo. 

The criticism of Herbert's poetry (j). 320) is not so 
pleasing, because not so just. 

CRASHAW. 

Page 3 19. — "This story, as Mr. Lambe observes, has 
been paraphrased by Crashaw, Ambrose Philips, and 
others ; none of those versions, however, can at all 
compare, for harmony and grace, with this before us." — 
GifFord's edition of the Works of Ford, vol. i. p. 14. 
Every editor assumes the right of elevating his own 



360 SUPPLEMENT, 

hero 5 it is the Esquire vaunting the exploits of his 
Knight. In harmony and grace, superiority may, per- 
haps, be awarded to Ford 3 but in richness and fervour 
of style, what comparison can be instituted between him 
and Crashaw ? Ford's imitation occurs in the Lover s 
Melancholy, which was published in 1 629. Menaphon 
is recounting to Amethus a circumstance that happened 
to him one morning while he was in Thessaly : — 

A sound of music touched mine ears, or rather 
Indeed, entranced my soul. As I stole nearer, 
Invited by the melody, I saw 
This youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his lute, 
With strains of strange variety and harmony ; 
Proclaiming, as it seemed so bold a challenge 
To the clear choristers of the woods, the birds, 
That as they flock' d about him, all stood silent, 
Wond'ring at what Ihey heard. — I wonder'd too — 

Amet. And so do I, — good ! on — 

Men. A nightingale, 

Nature's best musician, undertakes 

The challenge ; and for every several strain 

The well-shaped youth could touch, she sung her own : 

He could not run division with more art 

Upon his quaking instrument, than she, 

The nightingale, did with her various notes 

Reply to * * * 

Amet. How did the rivals part? 

Men. You term them rightly ; 

For they were rivals, and their mistress, harmony. 
Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last 
Into a pretty anger, that a bird 
Whom art had never taught cliffs, moods, or notes, 
Should vie with him for mastery, whose study 
Had busied many hours to perfect practice. 
To end the controversy, in a rapture, 
Upon his instrument he plays so swiftly, 



SUPPLEMENT. 361 

So many voluntaries, and so quick, 
That there was curiosity and cunning, 
Concord in discord, lines of different method 
Meeting in one full centre of delight. 

Italian poetry contains some exquisite versions of 
this story. 

Page 324. — I cannot resist the temptation of adding 
a few lines from Crashaw's version of the 23 d Psalm : 

Pleasure sings my soul to rest, 
Plenty wears me at her breast — 

# * * # * 

Come now, all ye terrors, sally, 
Muster forth into the valley, 
Where triumphant darkness hovel's 
With a sable wing that covers 
Brooding horror. Come, thou Death. 
Let the damps of thy dull breath 
Overshadow even the shade, 
And make darkness* self afraid — 
There my feet, even there shall find 
May for a resolved mind ; 
Still my Shepherd, still my God, 
Thou art with me — 

# * * # # 

How my head in ointment swims ! 

How my cup o'erlooks her brims, 

Still may thy sweet mercy spread 

A shady arm above my head, 

About my path, so shall I find 

The fair centre of my mind 

Thy temple, and those lovely walls 

Bright ever with the beam that falls 

Fresh from the pure glance of thine eye, 

Lighting to Eternity. 



362 SUPPLEMENT. 



MORE. 



Page 334. — There was a playful simplicity about all 
his expressions. After completing a work on which he 
had been long engaged, he said; — " Now for these three 
months, I will neither think a wise thought, nor speak 
a wise word, nor do an ill thing." He used often to 
remark, that he found it one of the hardest things in 
the world not to over study himself -, and when he was 
writing his Exposition of the Apocalypse, he observed, 
that his nag (as he called his imagination) was but over- 
free, and went even faster than he almost desired, but he 
thought it was the right way. But when his toil was over, 
he shared the weariness and exhaustion which result 
from literary exertion, and he complained to his friends 
that the earthly house was a poor habitation for its 
immortal guest. More, indeed, underwent all the 
drudgery of authorship, his works being fairly transcribed 
by his own hand. Pope is known to have wished 
himself dead while translating Homer ; and More, in his 
moments of irritation, assured his friends that when he 
got his hands out of the fire, he would not very sud- 
denly thrust them in again. He seems to have shone 
in colloquial intercourse. His remarks often possess the 
terseness which gave such animation to the manner 
of Johnson, 

Speaking of criticism and quotations, he said, that it 
was like going over ploughed lands ; and in allusion to 
the copiousness of his fancy, he once observed, that he 
was forced to cut his way through a crowd of thoughts as 
through a wood. 



SUPPLEMENT. 363 

ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

Page 98. — In the recently-published part of the Bib- 
liographer s Manual, Mr. Lowndes mentions a copy of 
Fidelia, in the possession of Sir M. Sykes, bearing the 
date of 1617. 

Page 197. — In Dyer's Supplement to the History of the 
University of Cambridge, Quarles is said to have taken his 
Bachelor's Degree in 1608. 

Page 198. — In Ogborne's History of Essex, pt. i. p. 160, 
it is stated, that Quarles remained in the service of the 
Queen of Bohemia about four years. This statement 
is without any authentication. 



THE END. 



Errata, 

Page 2, for advances, read advance, 
94, for 1612, read 1620. 
295, for are involved, read is involved. 



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Part II. 
The Right Rev. CHRISTOPHER BETHELL, D.D., Lord Bishop of Bangor. 
The Very Rev. GEORGE DAVYS, D.D., Dean of Chester. 
The Rev. ARCHIBALD M. CAMPBELL, M.A., Vicar of Paddington. 
The Rev. SAMUEL RICKARDS, Rector of Stow Langtoft, Suffolk. 
The Venerable EDWARD BATHER, M.A., Archdeacon of Salop. 
The Rev. CHARLES WEBB LE BAS, M.A., Rector of St. Paul, Shadwell. 

Part III. 
The Rev. EDWARD HAWKINS, D.D., Provost of Oriel. 

The Rev. EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY, B.D., Reg. Prof, of Hebrew, Oxford. 
The Rev. HENRY BLUNT, M.A., Minister of Trinity Church, Chelsea. 
The Rev. J. C. WIGRAM, M.A., Curate of St. James's, Westminster. 
The Rev. JAMES ENDELL TYLER, B.D., Rector of St. Giles in the Fields. 

Part IV. 
The Very Rev. HUGH NICHOLSON PEARSON, D.D., Dean of Salisbury. 
The Rev. EDWARD BURTON, D.D., Regius Professor of Divinity, Oxford. 
The Venerable EDWARD BERENS, M.A., Archdeacon of Berks. 
The Rev. JOHN PENROSE, M.A., Vicar of Bracebridge. 
The Rev. CHARLES GIRDLESTONE, M.A., Vicar of Sedgeley. 
The Rev. THOMAS AINGER, M.A., Minister of St. Mary's, Greenwich. 

Part V. 
The Right Rev. JOHN BIRD SUMNER, D.D., Lord Bishop of Chester. 
The Rev. JOHN RUSSELL, D.D., Rector of St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate. 
The Rev. SAMUEL CHARLES WILKS, M.A. 
The Rev. T. F. BOWERBANK, M.A., Vicar of Chiswick. 
The Rev. JOHN HODGSON, B.D., Vicar of Sittingbourne. 
The Rev. CHAS. LAWSON, M.A., Morning Preacher at the Foundling Hospital. 

Part VI. 
The Most Rev. RICHARD WHATELY, D.D., Lord Archbishop of Dublin. 
The Rev. P. NICHOLAS SHUTTLE WORTH, D.D., Warden of New College. 
The Venerable CHARLES J. HOARE, M. A., Archdeacon of Winchester. 
The Rev. R. WEBSTER HUNTLEY, M.A., Rector of Boxwell. 
The Rev. HENRY THOMPSON, M.A., Curate of Wrington, Somerset 

VOLUME THE SECOND : 

Part VII. 
The Hon. and Right Rev. HENRY RYDER, D.D., Lord Bishop of Lichfield and 

Coventry. 
The Venerable THOMAS PARRY, M.A., Archdeacon of Antigua. 
The Rev. ALLEN COOPER, M.A., Minister of St. Mark's, North Audley-street. 
The Rev. J. E. N. MOLESWORTH, M.A., Rector of St. Martin, Canterbury 
The Rev. HENRY LATHAM, M. A., Curate of All Souls, Langham-place. 



GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION. 



Part VIII. 
The Right Rev. JOHN KAYE, D.D., Lord Bishop of Lincoln. 
The Rev. THOMAS ARNOLD, D.D., Head Master of Rugby School. 
The Rev, JAMES S. M. ANDERSON, M. A., Minister of St. George's, Brighton. 
The Rev. GEORGE ROBERT GLEIG, M.A., Rector of Ivy Church. 
The Rev. RICHARD HARVEY, M.A., Rector of Hornsey. 
The Rev. B. E. N1CH0LLS, M.A., Curate of Walthamstow. 

Part IX. 
The Right Rev. CHAS. RICHARD SUMN ER, D.D., Lord Bishop of Winchester. 
The Rev. HENRY HART MILMAN, M.A., Vicar of St. Mary, Reading. 
The Rev. HENRY RAIKES, M.A., Chancellor of the Diocese of Chester. 
The Rev. EDWARD SCOBELL, B .A., Minister of St. Peter's, Vere-street. 
The Rev. WILLIAM F. RAYMOND, M.A., Chaplain at Lincoln's Inn. 

Part X. 
The Right Rev. HENRY PHILLPOTTS, D.D., Lord Bishop of Exeter. 
The Rev. SAMUEL HINDS, D.D., Queen's College, Oxford. 
The Rev. JOHN WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM, M.A., Vicar of Harrow. 
The Rev. THOMAS BARTLETT, M.A., Rector of All Saints, Canterbury. 
The Rev. WILLIAM SHORT. M.A., Vicar of Chippenham. 

Part XI. 
The Right Rev. RICHARD MANT, D.D., Lord Bishop of Down and Connor. 
The Hon. and Very Rev. GEORGE PELLEW, D.D., Dean of Norwich. 
The Rev. WILLIAM STONE, M.A., Rector of Christ Church, Spitalfields. 
The Rev. THOMAS BOWDLER, M.A., Rector of Addington, Kent. 
The Rev. GEORGE TOMLINSON, M. A., Minister of St. Matthew's Chapel. 

Part XII. 
The Right Rev. JOHN JEBB., D.D., Lord Bishop of Limerick. 
The Rev. JOHN J. BLUNT, B.D., Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. 
The Rev. RICHARD TWO PENY, M.A., Rector of Little Custerton. 
The Rev. SAMUEL SMITH, M.A., Minister of St. George's, Camberwell. 
The Rev. J. H. POOLEY, M.A., Curate of St. James's, Westminster. 



Volume the Third, as far as at present published. 

Part XIII. 
The Right Rev. EDWARD COPLESTONE. D.D., Lord Bishop of Llandaff. 
The Rev. CHARLES CR AUFURD, M.A , Minister of the Holy Trinity, Coventry. 
The Rev. JAMES AMIRAUX JEREMIE, M.A., Christian Advocate, Cambridge. 
The Rev. F. E. THOMPSON, M.A., Minister of St. George's, Old Brentford. 
The Rev. RICHARD B. HONE, M.A., Curate of Portsmouth. 
The Rev. THOMAS T. HAVERFIELD, B.D., Rector of Goddington. 

Part XIV. 
The Hon. and Right Rev. E. GREY, D.D., Lord Bishop of Hereford. 
The Rev. A. OLLIVANT, M.A., Vice Principal of St. David's College, Lampeter. 
The Rev. T. CHEVALLIER, B.D., Vicar of St. Andrew the Great, Cambridge. 
The Rev. CORNELIUS IVES, M.A., Rector of Bradden, Northamptonshire. 
The Rev. GILBERT BERESFORD, M.A., Rector of St. Andrew's, Holborn. 

Part XV. 
The Right Rev. E. MALTBY, D.D., Lord Bishop of Chichester. 
The Rev. ROBERT ANDERSON, M.A. Minister of Trinity Chapel, Brighton. 
The Rev. ANDREW IRVINE, B.D , Vicar of St. Margaret's, Leicester. 
The Rev. JAMES S. BOONE, M.A., Minister of St. John's Chapel, Paddington. 
The Rev. R. S. B. SANDILANDS, M.A., Minister of Curzon Chapel, May Fair. 

Part XVI. 
The Right Rev. JAMES WALKER, D.D., Bishop of Edinburgh. 
The Rev. T. H. LOWE, M.A., Precentor of Exeter. 
The Rev. J. SLADE, M.A., Vicar of Bolton-le-Moor. 
The Rev. W. NORRIS, M.A., Rector of Warblington, Hants. 
The Rev. H. LINDSAY, M.A., Vicar of Croydon. 
The Rev. W. H. PARRY, B.D., Rector of Holt, Norfolk. 



Either of the Parts or Volumes may be had separately. 



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A MANUAL of DEVOTION for the Use of Families; 

■*■*- arranged chiefly from the Book of Common Prayer. 

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f|ATHS; their Origin, Nature, and History 

By J. E. TYLER, B.D., 

Rector of- St. Giles' in the Fields, and late Fellow of Oriel College. 



The practical questions on which the 
Author has endeavoured in this Treatise 
to throw light, are chiefly three : — 

1st. Are Oaths in themselves lawful to 
a Christian ? or are they altogether pro- 
hibited by the Gospel ? 

2nd. If Oaths are in themselves law- 
ful, are they, as at present administered 
and taken in England, calculated to pro- 
mote truth and justice ? And are they 
agreeable to the religion which we profess? 

3rd. If any alterations in our system of 
Oaths should appear desirable, on what 
principles, and by what means, 'may such 
changes be most safely and satisfactorily 
effected ? 



In the remarks and suggestions which 
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present state of Oaths in England, the 
principle by which he professes to have 
been guided is this, — that whilst change, 
generally speaking, is, in itself, an evil, 
and is, therefore, never to be adopted 
lightly, or for its own sake, nevertheless, 
it is the office not of hatred but of love, 
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By JONATHAN T. BARRETT, D.D., 

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Following her example in the Public 
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them with the duties of repentance, it 
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of devotion, to cheer, to animate, and 
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T^AITH and PRACTICE; or, The Application of 
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PROFESSOR OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE TO KING'S COLLEGE, 

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I. 

RUDIMENTS of the FRENCH LANGUAGE, 

Or, FIRST FRENCH READING BOOK. 

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I would not have been at the trouble of compiling the present work, could I have 
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II. 

LIVRE DE CLASSE. 

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PUBLISHED BY JOHN W. PARKER, LONDON. 



Published Monthly, in Music Folio, price Is. 6d., 

SACRED MINSTRELSY; 

A COMPREHENSIVE COLLECTION OF THE 
FINEST AND MOST ADMIRED 

SACRED MUSIC OF THE GREATEST MASTERS, 

OF ALL AGES AND NATIONS; 

ARRANGED as SOLOS, DUETS, TRIOS, CHORUSSES, &c, and with 
ACCOMPANIMENTS for the PIANO-FORTE or ORGAN. 



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and biographical notices of the composers, and of the authors of the poetry 
adapted, and will consist of twenty pages, music-folio size. 

No. I. contains: — 

come, let us Worship, and fall down ."7 Handel. 

Prepare ye the Way of the Lord . . . Michael Wise. 

Behold ! I bring you glad tidings. . . Dr. Greene. 

Bow blest the man, how more than blest! Righini. 

The Lord, the Almighty Monarch, spake Beethoven. 

Eternal Ruler of the Skies ..... Mozart. 

VII. Solo. (MS.) . Hear my Prayer Dr. Dupuis. 

No. II. 

. In God's Name will I rejoice .... Purcell. 

. Of Stars how fairest ...... Haydn. 

. 6 come hither and hearken . * Nares 

. hold Thou me up Marcello. 

. Yon Abbey Bell, so full and swelling . Neukomm. 

. Come, come, with Sacred Lays . . Himmel. 

No. III. 

I. Air, .... 0, Lamb of God Mozart. 

II. Anthem, . . Lord, what Love have I unto thy Imw . Kent. 
III. Air, . . . . Every Day will I give Thanks unto Thee Handel. 
IV Nunc Dimittis Gibbons. 

V. Christmas Song Messiah! at thy glad Approach . . . Bach. 

VI. Trio .... Lord, Thou hast searched me out . . Croft. 



I. Air, . . 

II. Anthem, . 

III. Anthem,' . 

IV. Quartett, 

V. Sacred Song, 
VI. Air, 



I. Trio, . . 

II. Duet, . 
III. Anthem, . 

IV. Duet, 

V. Sacred Song. 

VI. Choral, , 



LONDON : JOHN W. PARKER, WEST STRAND. 



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